FRED  M.  DEW  ITT 

BOOKSELLER 
1000  TELKGRAPH  AVE. 

OAKLAND,  (•  »  • 


STUDIES, 

LITERARY  AND  SOCIAL: 


BY 
RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON. 


SECOND  SERIES. 


INDIANAPOLIS: 

THE  BOWEN  MERRILL  CO. 

1892. 


Copyright,  1892, 

BY 

RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON. 


472TOO 


CONTENTS. 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER i 

BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI,  THE  JEW 24 

A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE      .      .  44 

A  MARTYR  TO  SCIENCE 69 

SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS  .    •    .  95 

THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE 119 

IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY  .138 

THE    MINNESINGER    AND    MEISTERSINGER         .         .         .167 

THE     AUDACITY    OF    GOETHE  185 

KING    HENRY    VIII          .     .   .        . 205 

CELEBRATED    AND    COMMON    FRIENDSHIPS  222 


PREFACE. 

When  the  manuscript  of  these  "Studies"  was  first  sub 
mitted  to  the  publishers,  it  was  with  expectation  of  printing 
in  one  volume;  but  as  this  would  have  been  inconveniently 
large,  it  was  decided  to  issue  in  two  series.  The  kindly  noti 
ces  which  have  been  accorded  to  the  First  led  the  author  to 
hope  for  like  indulgence  to  its  successor. 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 


"This  I  consider  to  be  the  principal  use  of  annals,  that  instances  of 
virtue  may  be  recorded;  and  that  by  the  dread  of  future  infamy  and 
the  censures  of  posterity  men  may  be  deterred  from  depravity  in 
word  and  deed.  But  such  was  the  pestilential  character  of  those 
times,  so  contaminated  with  adulation,  that  not  only  the  first  nobles, 
whose  obnoxious  splendor  found  protection  only  in  obsequiousness, 
but  all  who  had  been  consuls,  a  great  part  of  such  as  had  been  prae 
tors,  and  even  many  of  the  inferior  senators  strove  for  priority  in  the 
fulsomeness  and  extravagance  of  their  votes.  There  is  a  tradition 
that  Tiberius,  as  often  as  he  went  out  of  the  Senate,  was  wont  to  cry 
out  in  Greek,  'How  fitted  for  slavery  are  these  men!'  Yes,  even  Ti 
berius,  the  enemy  of  public  liberty,  nauseated  the  crouching  tame- 
ness  of  his  slaves." 


^PHIS  lesson,  taught  by  the  virtuous  Tacitus  in 
*  his  "Annals,"  has  often  been  neglected.  Not 
always  do  men,  even  those  most  gifted  with  fore 
sight,  profit  by  the  experiences  of  others  when 
following  on  the  very  lines  that  led  to  disaster. 
With  the  vicious  it  is  easier  to  hope  for  impunity 
than  to  turn  themselves  from  evil  ways.  That  Ti 
berius  and  his  minions  should  have  cared  not 
enough  for  the  judgment  of  posterity  was  unfortu 
nate  notwithstanding  the  doubts  of  that  age  regard 
ing  a  future  life.  For  good  men,  even  of 
heathen  nations,  have  ever  been  wont  to  hope  that 


;*.'•  : ' '        '; ;  JJDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

their  names  and  memories  would  live  in  the  favora 
ble  speeches  of  survivors. 

But  what  shall  we  think  of  such  disregard  among 
Christian  peoples,  among  a  people  who  were  not 
only  Christian,  but  who  had  taken  upon  themselves 
to  reform  the  whole  Christian  Charch  with  allega 
tions  that  it  had  dishonored  its  Founder;  among  a 
people  who  had  been  unmolested  in  their  work  of 
reformation  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  in  the 
last  twenty  of  which  those  who  had  been  most  pro 
nounced  in  their  denunciations  of  Christian  con 
duct  of  every  kind,  in  high  places,  had  slain  a  wicked 
king  and  in  the  commonwealth  built  upon  his  ruin 
made  laws  for  the  suppression  of  every  species  of 
iniquity,  and  then,  as  if  fatigued  with  their  own 
work  and  responsibilities,  called  back  the  exiled 
son  of  their  deceased  ruler  with  invocations  of  the 
blessings  of  God? 

The  period  of  the  Restoration  is  in  some  respects 
the  most  interesting  in  British  history.  Indeed  in 
all  history  can  hardly  be  found  more  rapid  and 
eventful  changes  in  some  of  the  most  important 
elements  of  a  nation's  being.  Recalled  because  the ' 
people  had  been  made  sick  nigh  unto  death  under 
Puritan  rule,  without  genius  for  empire,  incapable, 
apparently  not  desirous  to  become  a  warrior  or  a 
statesman,  Charles  II.  took  the  crown  which  had 
been  offered  to  him,  and  entered  upon  a  career  that 


EDWARD    HYDE  S    DAUGHTER.  3 

was  singularly  eventful.  There  was  an  opportun 
ity  for  a  beneficent  ruler,  if  he  could  have  been 
surrounded  by  ministers  wise,  patriotic  and  coura 
geous,  who  would  have  led  him  to  avoid  the  mis 
takes  of  his -ancestors.  With  a  monarch  not  more 
inclined  to  shed  blood  for  the  violence  done  to  the 
dynasty  of  his  family,  it  seems  curious  that  obsequi 
ousness  in  courtiers  was  as  base  as  ever  it  had  been 
under  the  rule  of  the  worst  Roman  emperors.  The 
House  of  Commons,  composed  mainly  of  Dissen 
ters,  in  a  body  must  make  haste  to  prostrate  them 
selves  before  their  gracious  master,  declare  that 
words  were  inadequate  to  express  their  sense  of  the 
heinousness  of  the  sins  which  had  been  committed 
against  sacred  majesty,  and  after  obtaining  forgive 
ness  for  themselves  clamor  for  a  more  condign 
punishment  than  that  which  he  seemed  inclined  to 
inflict  upon  others  who  had  been  as  guilty,  but  less 
abject. 

The  Prime  Minister  was  a  man  formed  by  nature 
for  a  noble  work.  In  different  circumstances  he 
might  have  achieved  what  would  have  made  him 
be  numbered  among  the  greatest  statesmen.  First 
an  opposer  of  the  most  arbitrary  measures  of  Charles 
L,  having  joined  in  the  impeachment  of  the  Earl 
of  StrafTord,  he  turned  at  length  from  the  violent 
party  of  the  people,  followed  into  exile  the  son,  was 
his  chief  counsellor  during  that  period,  returned 


4  EDWARD    HYDE  S  DAUGHTER. 

with  him  when  called  back  to  his  fathers  throne, 
and  led  the  administration  until  his  ungrateful 
master  gave  him  up  to  the  clamors  of  new  favorites 
and  drove  him  into  a  second  exile  wherein  he  was 
to  die.  During  this  last  period  he  got  what  solace 
was  possible  in  writing  his  "History  of  the  Great 
Rebellion"  and  the  "Account  of  His  Own  Life." 
The  latter  work  we  propose  now  to  consider  briefly, 
particularly  the  part  referring  to  the  marriage  of 
his  daughter  Anne. 

Behavior  like  that  of  which  Edward  Hyde,  then 
Lord  Clarendon,  wrote  with  his  own  hand  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  find  in  the  biography  of  any  parent, 
at  least  one  approximating  his  rank.  Whoever 
reads  of  this,  as  well  in  the  father's  own  "Account," 
as  in  the  concurrent  memoirs  of  those  times,  must 
have,  we  should  suppose,  opinions  concerning  King 
James  II.  somewhat  different  from  those  generally 
held.  It  the  father  of  Anne  Hyde  was  not  sincere 
in  the  feeling  which  he  expressed  on  first  hearing 
of  the  connection  between  her  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  his  utterances  were  sufficiently  base.  If  he 
was  sincere,  it  would  be  hardly  more  than  justice  to 
characterize  him  as  the  most  shamelessly  unnatural 
of  all  fathers  of  whom  history  has  transmitted 
account. 

There  is  something  in  feminine  honor  that  ever 
has  seemed  to  call  from  the  male  sex  an  amount  of 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  5 

tender  respect,  and  of  the  taking  of  risks  for  its 
defence,  that  are  required  by  no  other  human  con 
dition.  Particularly  has  this  been  the  case  with 
maidens.  The  dishonor  of  wives,  indeed,  has 
always  been  regarded  with  horror,  but  to  all  man 
ful  minds  that  of  daughters  has  seemed  yet  more 
appalling.  Mankind  praised  the  suicide  of  the  high 
born  Lucretia  for  enduring  the  insult  of  Tarquinius; 
but  higher  was  the  laudation  for  the  humble  centu 
rion  who,  by  making  himself  childless,  saved  his 
daughter  from  outrage  by  the  proud  Decemvir. 
The  world  holds  in  scorn  the  husband  who  condones 
the  ruin  of  his  wife;  but  there  is  no  depth  to  its  de 
testation  for  the  parent  who  tolerates,  much  less 
connives  at,  that  of  his  daughter.  We  are  now 
contemplating,  it  is  true,  a  period  wherein  social 
and  domestic  virtues,  especially  among  the  highest 
circles,  were  as  low,  or  almost  as  low,  as  they  have 
ever  been  among  any  people  of  whom  we  have  pub 
lished  accounts.  Yet  among  all  the  evil  examples 
which  that  notable  period  has  transmitted,  the  case 
of  Anne  Hyde  to  us  appears  the  worst. 

In  order  to  mitigate  as  much  as  possible  her 
father's  conduct,  and  bring  it  to  that  degree  wherein 
it  may  seem  the  conduct  at  least  of  a  human  being, 
not  of  a  devil,  we  must  assume  (what  indeed  is 
most  probable)  that  the  father  was  acting  through 
out  a  part  of  unmixed  duplicity,  and  that  the  last 


6  EDWARD    HYDE  S  DAUGHTER. 

results,  though  following  so  contrary  to  his  counsels 
and  pretended  wishes,  were  such  as  he  had  long  pre 
meditated  and  eagerly  hoped  to  see  attained.  Such 
assumptions  must  be  taken  and  allowed  sometimes 
in  order  to  make  certain  things  credible.  For 
there  be  some  things,  as  Horace  warned  the  young 
Pisos,  which  are  so  monstrous  that  a  person  of  ordi 
nary  virtue  and  credulity  cannot  forbear,  while  lis 
tening  to  their  recital,  to  exclaim,  "Incredulus  odi!" 

Yet,  let  it  be  remarked  that  this  assumption  is  ta 
ken  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  "Account"  was 
drawn  up  ten  years  after  the  occurrences  described, 
and  while  the  father  was  languishing  in  exile  in  a 
foreign  country. 

There  is  much  in  the  first  appointment  of  Anne 
Hyde  in  the  household  of  the  Princess  of  Orange 
that  "sounds  of  fraud."  To  the  suggestion  of 
O'Xeil  that  he  should  apply  in  her  behalf  for  the 
place,  "Hyde  answered"  (as  said  in  the  "Account") 
"that  he  had  but  one  daughter,  who  was  all  the 
comfort  and  company  her  mother  had  in  her  melan 
cholic  retirement,  and  therefore  he  was  resolved 
not  to  separate  theni,  nor  to  dispose  his  daughter 
to  a  court  life."  Yet,  when  the  family-friend's  inte 
rest  had  prevailed,  and  an  offer  was  made  by  the 
Princess  and  the  King,  her  brother,  the  father, 
though  still  professing  disinclination,  left  the  de 
cision  to  the  mother,  who  quickly  enough  accepted. 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  7 

A  father  apprehensive  of  the  influence  of  court 
life  upon  an  only  daughter  soon  had  reason  to  feel 
more  so  from  the  praise  everywhere  bestowed  upon 
her.  In  a  few  months  after  her  appointment  the 
Queen  of  Bohemia  wrote  : 

"We  had  a  Royaltie,  though  not  upon  twelf  night,  at 
Teiling.  Mrs.  Hide  was  a  shepardess,  and  I  assure 
you  was  verie  handsome  in  it.  None  but  her  mis 
tress  looked  better  than  she  did.  I  believe  my  lady 
Hide  and  the  Chancellour  will  not  be  sorie  to  heare 
it".  And  afterwards:  "I  pray  remember  me  to  Mr. 
Chancellour,  and  tell  him  his  ladie  and  my  favorit, 
his  daughter,  came  hither  upon  Saturday,  and  are 
gone  this  day  to  Teiling.  I  finde  my  favorit  grow- 
en  everie  way  to  her  advantage. " 

In  spite  of  anxieties  which  must  have  been 
sharpened  by  such  glowing  accounts  of  the  gifts  of 
the  new  maid  of  honor  in  public  impersonations  of 
poetic  characters,  there  seemed  never  to  have  been 
as  much  as  a  thought  of  withdrawing  her  and  she 
was  suffered  to  continue  "growen  everie  way  to 
her  advantage. " 

Anne  Hyde  was  not  a  beauty;  but  she  had  the 
understanding,  culture,  and  manners  that  often  cap 
tivate  more  than  beauty  of  person.  These  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  paid  by  the  Princess  to  the  Queen 
mother  at  Paris,  attracted  the  Duke  of  York,  to 
whose  suit  she  lent  a  willing,  but  entirely  honorable 


8  EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

consent,  and,  upon  the  return  to  Breda,  signed 
with  him  a  contract  of  marriage  which  after  the  Res 
toration  was  secretly  ratified  at  Worcester  House, 
her  father's  residence,  the  bride  having  been  given 
away  by  the  Lord  Ossory.  Some  circumstances 
there  were,  not  necessary  to  be  mentioned  here, 
that  would  seem  to  have  made  it  impossible  for  the 
Chancellor  not  to  know  the  relations  of  Anne  to  the 
Duke.*  However  we  shall  see  how  he  admits  to  have 
behaved  when  the  latter  demanded  of  his  brother  the 
right  to  publish  his  marriage,  and  the  Chancellor,  Lord 
Ormcnd  and  Southampton  had  been  summoned  for 
consultation  touching  the  demand.  It  would  be 
not  easy,  we  believe,  to  match  the  following  extracts 
from  an  autobiography: 

"The  first  matter  of  general  and  public  importance, 
and  which  resulted  not  from  any  debate  in  Parlia- 

*Things  far  less  significant  than  many  which  must  have  come 
constantly  within  the  Chancellor's  observation  had  raised  sus 
picion  outside  of  his  family.  In  Locke's"  Memoirs  of  Lord  Shafts- 
bury"  occurs  the  following:  "Soon  after  the  Restoration  of  King 
Charles  II.,  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  Sir  Anthony  Ashley  Coop 
er,  having  dined  together  at  the  Chancellor's,  as  they  were  returning 
home,  Sir  A.  said  to  my  Lord  Southampton,  'Yonder  Mrs  Anne  Hyde 
is  certainly  married  to  one  of  the  "Brothers."  '  The  Earl  who  was  a 
friend  to  the  Chancellor  treated  this  as  a  chimera,  and  asked  how  so 
wild  a  fancy  got  into  his  head.  'Assure  yourself  (replied  he)  'it  is 
so.  A  concealed  respect  (however  suppressed)  showed  itself  so 
plainly  in  the  looks,  voice,  and  manner  wherewith  her  mother  carv 
ed  to  her,  or  offered  her  of  every  dish,  that  it  is  impossible  but  it 
must  be  so.'  My  Lord  S.,  who  thought  it  a  groundless  conceit  then, 
was  not  long  after  convinced,  by  the  Duke  of  York's  owning 
of  her  that  Lord  Alislcy  was  no  bad  guesser," 


EDWARD    HYDE  S   DAUGHTER.  9 

ment  was  the  discovery  of  a  great  affection  the 
Duke  had  for  the  Chancellor's  daughter,  who  was 
a  maid  of  honor  to  the  King's  sister,  the  Princess 
Royal  of  Orange,  and  of  a  contract  of  marriage  be 
tween  them,  with  which  nobody  was  so  surprised 
and  confounded  as  the  Chancellor  himself,  who,  be 
ing  of  a  nature  far  from  jealousy  and  very  confident 
of  an  entire  affection  and  obedience  from  all  his 
children,  and  particularly  from  that  daughter  whom 
he  had  loved  dearly,  never  had  in  the  least  degree 
suspected  any  such  thing,  though  he  knew  after 
wards  that  the  Duke's  affection  and  kindness  had 
been  much  spoken  of  beyond  seas,  but  without  the 
least  suspicion  in  any  body  that  it  could  ever  tend 

to  marriage But  now  upon  this  discovery 

and  the  consequence  thereof,  he  looked  upon  him 
self  as  a  ruined  person,  and  that  the  King's  indigna 
tion  ought  to  fall  upon  him  as  a  contriver  ot  that 
indignity  to  the  crown,  which  on  himself  from  his 
soul  be  abhorred,  and  would  have  had  the  presump 
tion  of  his  daughter  punished  with  the  utmost  seve 
rity,  so  he  believed  the  whole  kingdom  would  be  in 
fluenced  by  the  punishment  of  it  and  to  prevent  the 
dishonor  which  might  result  from  it.  And  the  least 
calamity  that  he  expected  upon  himself  and  his 
family,  how  innocent  soever,  was  an  everlasting 
banishment  out  of  the  kingdom  and  to  end  his  days 
in  foreign  parts  in  poverty  and  misery 


io  EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

"The  manner  of  the  Chancellor  receiving  this 
advertisement  made  it  evident  enough  that  he  was 
struck  with  it  to  the  heart,  and  had  never  had  the 
least  jealousy  or  apprehension  of  it.  He  broke  out 
into  a  very  immoderate  passion  at  the  wickedness 
of  his  daughter,  and  said  with  all  imaginable  earnest 
ness  that  as  soon  as  he  came  home  he  would  turn 
her  out  of  his  house  as " 

But  some  of  his  words  were  too  shocking  to  be 
transcribed  upon  a  clean  page.  The  other  lords  in 
council,  it  seems,  endeavored  to  mitigate  somewhat 
this  mighty  indignation,  and  called  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  Duke  had  admitted  the  marriage, 
and  that  the  business  in  hand  was  not  for  devising 
how  it  might  be  prevented,  but  of  what  was  to  be 
done  in  existing  circumstances.  The  monstrousness 
of  such  a  mesalliance  on  honorable  terms  at  first  had 
seemed  incredible  to  the  outraged  parent,  who,  we 
must  conclude  from  his  own  words,  could  easily 
bear  that  the  grandson  who  was  shortly  to  appear 
should  come  with  the  mark  of  ineffaceable  infamy 
upon  his  innocent  front,  but  not  that  one  so  low 
born  should  enter  among  the  possibilities  of  an 
eventual  wearing  of  the  crown.  When  the  awful 
fact  of  marriage  was  mentioned,  what  must  he  do? 
He  told  what  he  did,  and  he  told  it  long  afterwards 
when  himself  was  an  exile,  and  that  same  daughter 
was  in  the  enjoyment  of  wifehood  and  motherhood 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  n 

obtained  by  faithful  compliance  with  every  behest 
of  honor  and  religion. 

"Whereupon  he  fell  into  new  commotions  and   said,   if  that  were 
true,  he  were  well  prepared  to  advise  what  was  to  be  done." 

It  makes  one  shudder  to  read  what  he  says  as  to 
what  in  this  daughter's  case  he  would  prefer  than 
for  that  mighty  dynasty  to  be  dishonored  and  en 
dangered  by  a  public  acknowledgement  of  such  a 
marriage.  Any  disgrace  upon  himself  and  his  fam 
ily  he  could  endure,  but  none  inflicted  upon  those 
in  whom  was  the  divine  right.  "The  indignity  to 
himself  he  would  submit  to  the  good  pleasure  of  God. 
But  if  there  were  any  reason  to  suspect  the  other, 
he  was  ready  to  give  a  positive  judgment  in  which 
he  hoped  their  lordships  would  concur  with  him, 
that  the  King  should  immediately  cause  the  woman 
to  be  sent  to  the  Tower,  and  to  be  cast  into  a  dun 
geon  under  so  strict  a  guard  that  no  person  living 
should  be  permitted  to  come  to  her;  and  then  that  an 
act  of  Parliament  should  be  immediately  passed  for  the 
cutting  off  her  head,  to  which  hewould  not  only  give 
his  consent,  but  would  be  very  willingly  the  first 
man  that  should  propose  it.  And  whoso  knew  the 
man  will  believe  that  he  said  this  very  heartily.  .  . 
I  had  rather  submit  and  bear  this  disgrace  with  all 
humility  than  that  it  should  be  repaired  by  making 
her  his  wife,  the  thought  whereof  I  do  so  much 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

abominate  that  I  would  rather  see   her    dead  with 
all  the  infamy  that  is  due  to  her  presumption." 

Even  the  consoling  words  of  the  king,  which 
could  not  be  restrained  at  sight  of  the  injured 
father's  "swollen  eyes  from  whence  a  flood  of  tears 
were  fallen,"  were  answered  with  chidings  for  his 
too  great  clemency. 

"Your  Majesty  is  too  easy  and  gentle  a  nature,  to  contend  with 
those  rough  affronts  which  the  iniquity  and  license  of  the  late  times 
is  like  to  put  upon  you  before  it  be  subdued  and  reformed." 

We  will  believe,  for  the  honor  of  fatherhood,  that 
these  horribly  unnatural  words,  and  others  worse 
which  we  cannot  transcribe,  were,  simply  the 
grossest  lies,  uttered  tor  the  purpose  of  hiding  his 
joy  at  the  consummation  of  hopes  that  were  the 
fondest  he  had  ever  indulged.  It  must  have  been 
gratifying  to  the  family  and  friends  that,  not  long 
afterwards,  the  sorrowful  wailer  was  able  to  lift  his 
head,  if  only  a  trifle,  when  the  king  put  into  his 
hands,  privately,  a  gift  of  twenty  thousand  pounds. 

"This  bounty,  flowing  from  the  king  at  such  a  melancholic  junc 
ture,  and  of  which  nobody  could  have  notice,  could  not  but  raise  the 
spirits  of  the  Chancellor." 

If  ever  a  man  was  sorely  tempted  to  use  the  op 
portunities  extended  for  putting  away  his  wife,  it 
surely  was  the  Duke  of  York.  The  repugnance  of 
the  king,  that,  more  trying  still,  of  the  Princess  of 
Orange  and  the  Queen  mother,  the  condemnation 
of  Hyde  by  his  enemies  in  spite  of  his  disclaiming 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  13 

of  complicity,  above  all,  the  audacious  plot  of  Sir 
George  Berkeley,  his  master  of  horse,  with  Jermyn, 
Talbot,Killigrew,  and  Lord  Arran,  to  disgust  him 
by  blackening  his  wife's  name  with  charges  of  fa 
miliarities  of  which  themselves  had  been  recipients 
— all  these  shook  his  resolution;  but  only  for  a  brief 
time.  To  the  good  fortune  of  the  innocent  woman, 
the  man  by  whom  she  had  been  espoused,  whatever 
were  his  infirmities  and  however  he  may  have  been 
supposed  to  tire  of  her  society,  held  the  marriage 
bond  to  be  indissoluble,  except  by  the  act  of  God. 
Fortunate,  also,  it  was  that  the  stories  of  her  infidel 
ities  were  told  with  circumstantialities  so  manifest 
ly  absurd  that  they  were  obliged  to  be  discredited. 
For  a  time,  indeed,  the  duke  was  perplexed  in  the 
extreme  by  painful  doubts.  For  a  husband,  if  he 
doubts,  or  if,  to  his  knowledge,  others  doubt  of  the 
honor  that  is  most  precious  to  him,  suffers  as  a 
manful  spirit  can  suffer  from  no  other  cause.  But 
his  incertitude  happily  was  of  brief  duration.  The 
very  grossness  of  the  charges  dispelled  all  suspicion, 
and  the  sooner  brought  about  the  public  acknowl 
edgment,  every  day's  delay  of  which  added  to  the 
injuries  of  a  woman  whose  innocence  was  her 
only  possession  that  had  made  her  capable  to  en 
dure  them. 

A  graphic  account  was  given  of  this  by  the  Due 
de    Grammont,  in  his    Memoires.      With    a   pleas- 


14  EDWARD    HYDES  DAUGHTER. 

antry  of  a  looker-on  at  events  which  only  amused 
him,  he  speaks  of  the  accusers  as  "tous  gens  d'hon- 
neur,  mais  qui  preferoient  infiniment  celui  du  Due 
de  York  a  celui  de  Mademoiselle  Hyde. "  After  re 
citing  the  foul  calumnies,  and  the  summons,  almost 
immediately  after  this  utterance,  received  by  Lord 
Ossory  and  Sir  George  Berkeley  to  attend  the  Duke 
at  the  residence  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  he  thus 
concludes : 

"Us  trouve'rent  a  leur  marquee  son  Altesse  dans 
la  chambre  de  Mademoiselle  Hyde,  ses  yeux  par- 
oissoient  mouilles  de  quelques  larmes  qu'elle  s'  ef- 
for9oit  de  retenir.  Le  Chancelier,  appuye  contre  la 
muraille,  leur  parut  bouffi  de  quelque  chose.  Us  ne 
douterent  point  que  ce  ne  fut  de  rage  et  de  desespbir. 
Ex  Le  Due  d'  York  leur  dit,  de  cet  air  content  et 
serein  dont  on  annonce  les  bonnes  nouvelles,  'Com- 
mes  vous  etes  les  deux  hommes  de  la  Cour  que  j' 
esteme  le  plus,  je  veux  que  vous  ayez  les  premie'res 
1'honneur  de  saluer  la  Duchesse  d'York.  La  voila.'  " 

Small  place,  either  in  histories  or  contemporary 
memoirs,  was  given  to  the  young  woman  who  had 
been  so  sorely  tried.  That  she  suffered  keenly,  we 
cannot  doubt.  For  there  are  some  injuries  that, 
upon  the  innocent,  inflict  anguish  which  the  guilty 
never  feel,  even  under  the  hardest  blows.  Yet,  in 
the  midst  of  her  sorrow  in  secret  silence  the  hope 
must  have  been  strong  in  her  breast  that  the  deliv- 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  15 

erance  she  prayed  for  would  come  in  the  good 
time  of  God.  Not  yet  being,  not  yet  daring  to  be, 
a  Catholic  herself,  she  yet  could  not  fail  to  know  the 
solemn,  the  awful  inviolability  in  which  the  church 
of  her  husband  held  the  bond  of  marriage.  In  the 
inconstancy  of  his  sex,  in  the  fears  concerning  her 
honor  by  which  he  had  been  racked,  he  might  suffer 
her  to  fall  a  victim  under  the  act  which  her  unnatu 
ral  father  was  ready  to  propose  in  Parliament;  but 
she  knew  that  she  could  never  be  a  repudiated  wife 
of  him  to  whom  she  had  given  her  entire  self;  and 
so  she  waited  with  the  patience  by  which  Heaven 
supports  the  pure  in  heart,  whom,  with  purposes 
wise  and  merciful,  it  sometimes  allows  to  be  afflicted 
and  persecuted. 

Her  behavior,  after  this  public  recognition,  was 
like  what  we  have  read  in  the  lives  of  saints,  and 
nowhere  else.  Forgiveness  is  a  solemn  duty,  and 
when  practised  without  grudge  or  reservation,  a 
great  virtue.  But  there  was  something  almost  more 
than  human  in  that  extended  to  those  false  witnesses 
by  the  woman  whom  they  had  so  foully  wronged. 
At  least,  it  went  to  the  extremest  human  possibili 
ties,  not  only  when  they  were  all  forgiven  by  the 
husband  and  the  wife,  but  when  the  wife  bestowed 
praise  upon  conduct  which,  as  she  graciously  said, 
had  been  acted  solely  in  the  cause  of  the  safety  of 
her  dearest  lord.  For  the  knight,  Sir  George  Berke- 


1 6  EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

ley,  destined  for  yet  higher  honors,  had  so  pleaded 
in  justification  of  his  confessed  perjuries. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  these  assertions  of 
C^  icellor  Hyde  about  his  preferring  the  death  and 
disgrace  of  his  only  daughter  to  her  becoming  the 
acknowledged  wife  of  the  Duke  of  York,  were 
wholly  false.  Their  sincerity  would  have  been 
monstrous,  even  if  his  fears  of  the  ruin  that  the 
marriage  would  bring  upon  himself  had  been  well 
founded.  There  might  have  been  something,  we 
must  hope  there  was,  in  a  father's  instinct  to  shield 
his  offspring  from  threatened  condign  punishment 
by  himself  taking  the  lead  in  damnatory  epithets  to 
a  degree  that  sometimes  diverts  the  vengeance  in 
pursuit  and  leaves  open  a  way  for  pity  towards  a 
victim  so  entirely  friendless.  But  such  conduct, 
pardonable  in  some  cases,  was  wholly  unnecessary 
in  the  case  of  one  who  knew,  as  this  man  must  have 
known,  the  extent  of  his  power  and  influence. 
This  is  apparent  from  what  he  wrote  of  the  hostility 
of  the  Queen  mother  to  the  match,  so  fiercely  pro 
nounced  at  first,  but  destined  soon  to  subside  into  a 
most  proper  motherly  affection.  There  is  much 
sarcasm,  covert  as  it  tried  to  keep  itself,  in  rehears 
ing  the  speech  of  the  Queen,  who,  in  hot  haste,  had 
come  over  from  Paris,  to  put  her  foot  upon  the  ne 
farious  alliance,  that  "whenever  that  woman  should 
be  brought  into  Whitehall  by  one  door,  her  majesty 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  17 

would  go  out  of  it  at  another  door,  and  never  come 
into  it  again,"  and  how,  afterwards,  she  received 
from  Cardinal  Mazarin  a  significant  warn  wig, 
"that  she  would  not  receive  a  good  welcome*  n'fl> 
France  if  she  left  her  sons  in  her  displeasure,  and 
professed  an  animosity  against  those  ministers  who 
were  most  trusted  by  the  king."  This  intimation, 
in  briefest  time,  wrought  a  change  in  the  bearing  of 
the  offended  Henrietta  Maria.  On  the  day  before 
that  set  for  her  return,  the  Duke  presented  his  wife, 
when,  as  reported  by  the  gossipy  Pepys,  "the  Queen 
is  said  to  receive  her  now  with  much  respect  and 
love." 

The  duplicity  of  the  great  minister  appears  to 
have  been  chronic.  He  was  yet  only  Chancellor 
Hyde.  The  King  had  several  times  proposed  a 
peerage,  telling  him,  as  he  says,  "he  was  assured  by 
many  of  the  lords  that  it  was  most  necessary  for  his 
service  in  the  Parliament."  Eagerly  as  he  desired 
this  honor,  -his  instinctive  caution  made  him  de 
cline  then;  but  he  gave  his  promise  that  he  would 
accept  at  some  future  time,  a  promise  which  he 
faithfully  kept. 

The  bride  who,  through  so  many  difficulties,  had 
risen  so  high,  was  destined  to  bear  many  children, 
to  see  four  of  them  die  in  childhood  and  to  meet 
an  early  death  herself.  Doubtless  she  never 
so  much  as  dreamed  that  two  of  her  surviving  off- 


1 8  EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER. 

spring  would  succeed  their  father  on  the  English 
throne.  It  seemed  like  one  of  the  dispositions  of 
Nemesis,  that  when  the  last  of  these  should  decease, 
those  of  her  high  born  successor  should  see  the  di 
adem  revert  through  two  generations  to  a  kinsman 
not  only  distant  but  a  foreigner. 

From  the  time  of  his  daughter's  marriage  the 
rise  of  Hyde  was  rapid.  Under  a  virtuous  and 
courageous  sovereign  such  a  minister  could  have 
done  well  for  his  country.  His  tastes  and  his  feel 
ings  were  sincerely  against  the  disgusting  immorali 
ties  of  the  court  and  the  age.  It  must  have  been 
painful  to  him  very  often  to  feel  obliged  to  connive 
at  actions  that  shocked  his  moral  sense;  yet  he  was 
too  fond  ot  power  even  to  insist  upon  those  which 
would  have  been  for  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  na 
tion.  He  could  not  but  have  foreseen  how  that 
first  secret  borrowing  of  money  from  the  French 
monarch  would  result  in  a  dependency  that  would 
forever  disgrace  a  reign  in  which,  next  to  the  sov 
ereign,  he  was  enacting  the  leading  part.  Then 
not  only  his  moral  sense,  but  that  of  his  manhood, 
must  have  revolted  at  the  brutalities  inflicted  upon 
the  unhappy  Catharine  of  Braganza  from  the  very 
beginning  to  the  very  end  of  her  married  life.  He 
did,  indeed,  feebly  remonstrate  against  the  King's 
action  in  making  the  infamous  Lady  Castlemaine  a 
maid  of  the  bedchamber  of  the  pious  woman  whom 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  19 

he  had  lately  married.  Of  her,  shortly  after  his 
marriage,  the  King  had  written  thus,  after  much  in 
delicate  but  hearty  praise  of  her  personal  attract 
iveness:  "I  thinke  myself  very  happy,  for  I  am 
confident  our  two  humors  will  agree  very  well  to 
gether,"  and  "I  cannot  easily  tell  you  how  happy  I 
thinke  myself;  and  I  must  be  the  worst  man  living 
(which  I  hope  I  am  not)  if  I  be  not  a  good  husband.  " 
Yet  one  month  was  sufficient  to  cloy  him  who  had 
no  relish  for  happiness  honorably  obtained.  Let  us 
see  how  he  can  write  after  one  month  to  the  minis 
ter  who  had  humbly  counselled  against  the  course 
which  he  had  already  shown  his  intention  to  pursue. 

"I  forgott  when  you  were  heere  last,  to  desire  you  to  give  Brod- 
ericke*  good  counsell  not  to  meddle  any  more  with  what  concerns 
my  I>ady  Castlemaine,  and  to  let  him  have  a  care  how  he  is  the 
authorre  of  any  scandalous  reports;  for  if  I  nnde  him  guilty  of  any 
such  thing,  I  will  make  him  repent  it  to  the  last  moment  of  his  life. 
And  now  I  am  entered  on  this  matter,  I  thinke  it  very  necessary  to 
give  you  a  little  good  counsell  in  it,  least  you  may  thinke  that  by 
making  a  further  stirr  in  the  business  you  may  diverte  me  from  my 
resolution,  which  all  the  world  shall  never  do;  and  I  wish  I  may  be 
unhappy  in  this  world  and  in  the  world  to  come,  if  I  faile  in  the  least 
degree  what  I  have  resolved;  which  is  of  making  my  Lady  Castle 
maine  of  my  wives  bedchamber;  and  whosoever  I  findeuse  any  en 
deavour  to  hinder  this  resolution  of  myne  (except  it  be  only  to  my- 
selfe),  I  will  be  his  enemy  to  the  last  moment  of  my  life.  You  know 
what  a  true  friende  I  have  been  to  you.  If  you  will  oblige  me  etern 
ally,  make  this  business  as  easy  as  you  can  of  what  opinion  soever 
you  are  of;  for  I  am  resolved  to  go  through  with  this  matter  lett  what 
will  come  on  it;  which  againe  I  solemnly  sweare  before  Almighty 
God.  Therefore,  if  you  desire  to  have  the  continuance  of  my  friend- 

*Sir  Alan  Broderick,  Com.  of  Irish  Affairs  and  M.  P.  for  Dungar- 
van. 


20  EDWARD    HYDE?S  DAUGHTER. 

ship,  meddle  no  more  with  this  businesse  excepte  it  be  tobeare  down 
all  false  and  scandalous  reports,  and  to  facilitate  what  I  am  sure  my 
honour  is  so  much  concerned  in;  and  whosoever  I  finde  to  be  my 
Lady  Castlemaine's  enimy  in  this  matter,  I  do  promise  upon  my 
word,  to  be  his  enimy  as  long  as  I  live.  You  may  show  this  letter  to 
my  I-d.  Lnt.,  and  if  you  have  both  a  minde  to  oblige  me  cary  your 
selves  like  friends  to  me  in  this  matter.  CHARLES  R." 

If  the  limits  of  a  review  article  would  allow  such 
a  diversion,  we  should  like  to  notice,  if  only  in 
brief,  the  career  of  that  poor  queen;  how  her  atten 
dants  who  had  followed  her  from  Portugal  were  one 
by  one  driven  from  her  service;  how  her  sense  of 
wifehood  at  first  revolted  at  the  relations  with  Lady 
Castlemaine  proposed  by  her  husband,  and  she  was 
forced  to  yield  to  the  Chancellor's  entreaties  which 
his  base  servility  made  him  employ;*  how  her  sub 
mission  made  her  no  new  friends,  but  lost  to  her 
some  of  her  old;  how  she  was  rescued  from  the 
criminations  of  Gates,  yet  with  no  more  feeling  than 
would  have  been  bestowed  upon  the  lowest  woman 

*In  his  "Account"  he  writes  how  with  the  King  he  urged  "the 
hard-heartedness  and  cruelty  in  laying  such  a  command  upon  the 
Queen  which  flesh  and  blood  could  not  comply  with;"  how  his  course 
had  already  "lost  him  some  ground,"  and  how  its  continuance 
"would  break  the  hearts  of  all  his  friends,  and  be  only  grateful  to 
those  who  wished  for  the  destruction  of  monarchy."  Yet  in  a  month 
after  this  he  writes  thus  to  the  Duke  of  Ormond:  "I  have  likewise 
twice  spoken  with  the  Qtieene.  The  Lady  hath  beene  atCourte,  and 
kissed  her  hande,  and  returned  that  night.  I  cannot  tell  you  ther 
was  no  discomposure.  I  am  not  out  of  hope,  and  that  is  all  I  can  yett 
say.  I  shall  send  this  by  Sir  All.  Brodericke,  and  so  shall  not  neede 
to  use  cypher;  but  hereafter  I  shall  always  use  cypher  upon  this  ar 
gument,  and  I  believe  rarely  xipon  any  other;  and  therefore  you  must 
take  the  paynes  still  to  dischyfer  yourselfe." 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  21 

of  England  who  was  known  to  be  guiltless.  It 
might  be  interesting  to  follow  the  Lady  Castle- 
maine,  now  become  Dutchess  of  Cleveland,  in  her 
ons  and  offs  with  her  royal  lover  in  her  persistent 
and  finally  successful  endeavors  to  ruin  the  Lord 
Chancellor  after  the  sale  of  Dunkirk  and  the  disas 
ters  of  a  war  against  the  undertaking  of  which  he 
had  striven  in  vain.  But  we  must  make  an  end 
with  that  of  the  statesman  whom  we  have  been  con 
sidering.  He  died  hard.  Beyond  measure  it  sur 
prised  and  pained  him  that  his  servile  compliances 
with  things  which  his  judgment  and  his  conscience 
alike  had  condemned,  had  lost  for  him  both  the 
confidence  of  the  people  and  the  friendship  of  the 
court.  It  was  pitiful  to  see  how  tenaciously  he 
clung  to  power,  even  after  he  must  have  known 
that  his  hold  upon  it  was  forever  broken,  how  he 
resisted  every  intimation  to  resign,  how  angui sh 
ingly  he  received  the  orders  for  his  disgrace,  and 
how  in  his  exile  he  was  ever  praying  and  hoping 
for  pardon  and  permission  to  return.  Among  the 
very  last  letters  written  by  him  were  those  ad 
dressed  to  his  daughter  and  his  son-in-law  regarding 
the  reports  of  her  conversion  to  the  Roman  Catho 
lic  faith.  In  these  was  shown  his  accurate  knowl 
edge  of  the  temper  of  the  English  nation  upon 
this  subject.  After  some  discussion  ot  the  theolog 
ical  points,  he  insinuated  a  caution  which,  had 


22  EDWARD    HYDE*S  DAUGHTER. 

James  been  a  more  politic  man,  might  have  been 
heeded,  that  if  the  reported  defection  from  the 
English  Church  were  true,  "it  might  very  probably 
raise  a  greater  storm  against  the  Roman  Catholics 
in  general  than  modest  men  can  wish."  Even  in 
banishment  he  seemed  to  hold  to  the  idea  that 
action  in  matters  of  most  vital  importance  should 
be  determined  upon  with  views  of  personal  security. 
His  remonstrances  had  no  effect.  His  daughter 
died  in  the  consolations  of  that  faith  from  which,  in 
the  want  of  maternal  guidance,  her  surviving  daugh 
ters  were  destined  to  become  estranged. 

There  is  much  pathos  in  the  last  appeal  made  by 
Clarendon  a  few  months  before  his  death  at  Rouen. 
In  June  (1671)  he  had  written  to  the  King  and  en 
treated  "that  an  old  man  who  had  served  the  Crown 
above  thirty  years  in  some  trust  and  in  seme  accep 
tation,  might  be  allowed  to  end  his  days  in  the 
society  of  his  children,"  and  in  the  hope  that  so 
humble  a  petition  would  not  be  refused,  he  had  be 
gun  to  give  directions  for  some  changes  and  repairs 
for  his  former  country  estate.  No  answer  being 
received,  he  wrote  again  in  August.  "Seven  years," 
he  said  "was  a  time  prescribed  and  limited  by  God 
himself  for  the  extirpation  of  some  of  his  greatest 
judgments;  and  it  is  full  that  time  since  I  have,  with 
all  possible  humility,  sustained  the  insupportable 
weight  of  the  King's  displeasure.  Since  it  will  be 


EDWARD  HYDE'S  DAUGHTER.  23 

in  nobody's  power  long  to  keep  me  from  dying,  me- 
thinks  the  desiring  a  place  to  die  in  should  not  be 
thought  a  great  presumption,  nor  unreasonable  for 
me  to  beg  leave  to  die  in  my  own  country  and 
among  my  own  children."  No  attention  was  given 
to  this  last  appeal,  and  three  months  afterwards  he 
died  in  that  country  in  which  he  had  spent  so  many 
years  in  a  former  exile,  and  to  which  he  had  not 
even  endeavored  to  save  his  own  from  paying 
dishonorable  tribute.  To  the  gratitude  which  he 
so  humbly  prayed  to  be  paid  for  long,  laborious, 
patient  services,  many  of  which  had  been  rendered 
in  pandering  to  gratifications  not  only  unworthy  of 
a  king,  but  most  unmanly  and  vicious,  it  must  have 
been  anguishing  to  feel,  if  he  did  feel,  that  he  was 
not  entitled.  Little  affection  appears  to  have  been 
between  him  and  his  son-in-law.  Probably  it  is 
that  the  latter  felt  and  exhibited  contempt  for  his 
want  of  sincerity  and  courage,  qualities  which  this 
last  of  the  Stuart  kings  possessed  to  a  higher  degree 
than  any  other  of  that  house. 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI— THE  JEW. 


A  German  professor,  whose  religion,  like  that  of 
**  many  of  his  contemporaries  and  more  of  his 
successors,  was  of  an  uncertain  kind,  was  reported 
to  have  said  once  to  his  class:  'Gentleman  a  Jew  is 
a  Jew;  he  always  was  a  Jew,  and  he  always  will  be 
a  Jew;'  and  then  the  savant  instanced  and  com 
mented  humorously  upon  the  pleadings  of  the  great 
Patriarch  in  behalf  of  the  wicked  Sodom,  and  his 
Jewing diOVfici  infinite  justice  itself,  from  fifty  to  ten 
righteous  men,  who  were  required  to  be  found  in 
order  to  save  it  from  destruction.  Not  admitting 
the  propriety  of  an  illustration  that  treated  with  lev 
ity  an  instance  of  such  exalted  charitableness  in 
an  ancient  saint,  yet  we  cannot  fail,  sometimes,  to 
admire  anew  the  patient  persistence  of  this  singu 
lar  people,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  successes  with 
which,  in  individual  cases,  this  persistence  has  been 
rewarded. 

The  more  thoughtful  and  kindly  the  understand 
ing  of  any  Christian  man,  the  more  interest  he  takes 
in  the  marvellously  eventful  history  of  the  Hebrew 
nation.  How  melancholy  always!  The  elect  of  God, 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  25 

how  have  they  been  led  to  study  the  lessons  of  suf 
fering!  Those  strange  lessons,  the  full  value  of 
which  so  few  mortals  have  learned  sufficiently  to 
feel  the  transports  of  gratitude  that  such  learning 
imparts.  Public  and  domestic  treasons,  partings, 
exiles,  assassinations,  wars,  pestilences,  wearinesses 
with  excesses  of  prosperity,  even  the  palling  upon 
the  taste  of  consummate  earthly  wisdom!  And 
then  the  great  sin,  the  mightiest  and  deadliest,  the 
denial  of  their  long  promised  King,  followed  by 
their  limitless  dispersions,  and  the  ever-continuing 
iterations  of  the  misfortunes  belonging  to  their 
melancholy  heritage.  Unhappiest  of  all,  their 
prophets,  who  along  with  contemporaneous  circum 
stances,  prosperous  and  adverse,  had  to  endure 
fature  disasters — these  no  longer  exist  because  of 
the  Fulness  of  time.  The  Jew,  no  longer  collective, 
pursues  each  his  individual  way,  and  longs  and 
dreams  for  the  good  predicted  by  those  who,  be 
cause  they  predicted  evil  also,  were  stoned  by 
their  ancestors. 

What  longings  and  what  dreams! 

'For  oft'nest  th'  unhappy  have  their  desires: — 
But  in  dreams.' 

Neither  age  nor  lowly  condition  hinders  as 
much  as  it  leads  to  dreams,  sleeping  or  waking. 
Was  not  Isaac  born  when  Sarai  was  past  the  age? 
Was  not  Saul  summoned  from  his  searching  for  the 


26  BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW. 

asses'  colts,  and  David  from  the  sheepfolds? 
Among  all  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  of  whatever 
tongue  or  condition,  what  dreams  are  there  not  for 
the  maternity  of  the  Messias,  whom  they  believe  to 
be  yet  lingering  in  His  coming!  Towards  the 
Holy  City  according  as  their  estate  is  the  more 
lonely  and  unhappy,  their  eyes  are  turned  with  fonder 
yearnings  and  hopes  for  the  Captivity's  return. 

Therefore,  the  Jew  is  patient  and  persevering.  If 
he  fails  today,  he  hopes  to  win  tomorrow.  No  less 
hopeful  is  the  aged  than  the  young.  Even  the  dy 
ing,  in  the  midst  of  the  sad  retrospect  of  his  own 
poor  career,  lifts  up  his  heart  with  visions  of  a  better 
for  those  whom  he  leaves  behind  him.  Conversion 
to  Christianity  changes  their  national  traits  only 
in  kind.  The  heart  of  the  converted  Jew,  although 
with  different  purposes,  yet  yearns  for  the  city 
builded  upon  a  hill.  Like  Paul,  his  heart's  desire 
is  for  Israel. 

Thoughts  like  these  have  been  in  our  mind  of 
late,  while  contemplating  the  career  of  that  Isra 
elite,  who  lately  occupied  the  most  conspicuous 
place  among  living  men.  Illustrious  as  Benjamin 
D'Israeli  became,  it  is  not  so  much  in  the  capacity 
of  author  and  politician  that  he  impresses  us,  as 
in  that  of  a  Jew,  both  as  author  and  politician. 
What  his  ancestors  had  endured  in  the  days  of  perse 
cution,  more  than  their  brethren  in  the  South,  we 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI THE    JEW.  27 

need  not  enquire;  nor  what,  if  any,  intensifica 
tion  of  Hebrew  characteristics  either  preceded  or 
followed  the  change  of  their  family  to  the  national 
name;  nor  how  cordial  may  have  been  their  con 
version  to  Christianity.  A  Jew  he  was,  and  a  Jew 
he  continued  to  be.  Proud  of  a  descent  from 
those  who  had  direct  intercourse  with  the  King  of 
kings,  whose  angels  they  entertained,  and  whose 
Spirit  led  their  armies  to  innumerable  victories, — 
this  Jew,  when  yet  a  child,  loved  to  muse  upon  the 
ancient  glories  of  Israel;  their  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey,  their  boundless  tributes  of  gold,  and  sil 
ver,  and  precious  stones,  and  wealth  of  every  kind 
brought  from  subjugated  heathendom :  their  heroes 
and  poets,  and  prophets,  all  so  grand,  and  the 
grander  because  so  remote,  so  extending  back,  as  it 
\vere,  to  the  very  beginning  of  time  and  the  very 
gates  of  heaven.  If  he  was  proud  of  his  late  exal 
tation,  it  was  not  higher  than,  in  his  childhood,  he 
hoped  to  reach;  and  to  his  mind  it  was  lower  than 
the  eminences  on  which  many  a  Hebrew  had  stood 
during  the  golden  days  of  his  people. 

As  an  author  D'Israeli  exhibited  the  national 
characteristics  most  prominently.  Beginning  with 
Vivian  Grey  and  ending  with  Lothair,  his  most  in 
teresting  creations  are  of  the  Jewish  type,  and  show 
how  fond  he  is  of  the  serene  and  solemn  majesties 
of  the  East,  above  the  bustling  activities  of  the 


28  BENJAMIN    D'lSRAELI THE    JEW. 

West.  It  is  not  a  European  who  describes  those 
majestic  processions  and  assemblages,  those  gor 
geous  apparels,  those  displays  of  numberless  price 
less  jewels;  nor  are  they  Europeans  who  march  and 
are  clad  in  such  array.  The  characters  thus  de 
scribed  may  be  European  in  name,  and  the  author 
a  Christian,  so-called;  but  they  are  Asiatic  of  the 
ancient  type,  and  he  a  very  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews. 
Orientalism  abounds  even  among  his  creations 
which  are  avowedly  European.  But  occasionally, 
as  in  Tancred,  and  the  Wondrous  Tale  of  Alroy,  he 
is  in  the  very  midst  of  the  great  East,  and,  especially 
in  the  latter,  seems  to  feel  as  if  there  was  no  earth 
outside  of  it.  In  his  younger  days  the  critics  often 
derided  inventions  so  foreign,  so  ancient,  and  so  un 
known  in  European  life;  but  this  patient  toiler  and 
dreamer  toiled  on  and  dreamed  on ;  and  even  when 
long  past  his  youth,  and  a  leader  in  the  politics  of 
England,  he  invented  other  tales  in  the  intervals  of 
rest  from  political  labors,  and  from  India,  and  Ara 
bia,  and  all  the  East,  he  brought  the  gold,  and  the 
myrrh,  and  the  pearls,  and  the  jewels,  and  the  rich 
woven  vestments,  and  the  pomp  and  the  circum 
stance,  and  along  with  these  the  voluptuous  languor 
of  those  to  whom  such  possessions  had  come  down 
through  forty  centuries  of  ancestors. 

Now  why  did  a  man  so  gifted,  and  a  man  so  am 
bitious  for  power  and  fame  as  an  Englishman,  write 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI THE    JEW.  29 

such  things  as  the  Wondrous  Tale  of  Alroy,  in 
which  his  dreaminess  led  him  almost  to  oblivion  of 
his  native  tongue,  and  into  adoption,  with  no  change 
except  the  employment  of  English  words,  of  the 
measured  prose  of  Asiatic  nations?  It  is  pleasing, 
yet  it  is  sad  to  speculate  why.  This  strange  man 
seems  to  us  to  have  been  a  kind  of  double  man. 
He  was  an  Englishman,  and  he  was  a  Jew.  An 
Englishman,  he  was  modern,  active,  bold,  combatant; 
a  Jew  he  mused,  and  brooded,  and  suffered,  and 
dreamed,  and  waited.  To  the  English  people,  who, 
in  spite  of  their  devotion  to  business,  have  imagina 
tion — he  on  whom  heaven,  among  other  gifts,  be 
stowed  that  of  poesy,  recited  pleasing  tales;  not 
mirthful,  but  tales  in  which  memories  of  the  best 
ages  are  awakened :  when  kings  were  patriarchs, 
and  subjects,  their  children  and  kinsmen,  to  whom 
the  world's  wealth  belonged.  Pleasing  as.  such  tales 
might  be  to  his  countrymen  to  read,  they  were  far 
more  so  to  him  to  invent.  Sweeter  than  words 
could  express,  were  the  illusions  which  the  Jew 
could  thus  bring  over  his  own  mind,  as,  along  with 
these  personages  of  his  own  fancy,  he  mingled  among 
the  splendid  but  solemn  pageants  of  olden  Hebrew 
story.  The  true  poet,  like  the  true  prophet  is  often, 
unhappy.  But  the  poet,  unlike  the  prophet,  can 
gather  consolation,  and  sometimes  exquisite  happi 
ness  from  illusions.  Out  of  the  discordant  elements 


30  BENJAMIN    D' ISRAELI THE    JEW. 

of  this  life  he  can  make  new  creations,  imparting  to 
them  the  blessed  destiny  of  his  own  fancy,  and  so 
console  his  own  disappointments  with  the  splendid 
triumphs  of  his  own  begotten.  To  the  imaginative 
Jew,  far  more  than  to  the  practical  and  the  toiling, 
the  memories  of  his  ancestors  are  unutterably  dear. 
He  may  not  speak  with  his  own  mouth  to  the 
stranger  of  these  memories.  He  may  refuse  to  take 
down  his  harp  from  the  willow,  and  sing  the  songs 
of  Zion  in  a  strange  land  to  the  ears  of  insolent 
curiosity.  Yet,  the  more  gifted  he  is,  the  more  mu 
sical  his  heart,  the  sweeter  are  these  unforgotten 
songs,  and  the  more  he  feels  like  repeating  the  exe 
cration  of  him  who  invoked  it  when  he  exclaimed, 
'Ir  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem !  if  I  prefer  not  Jeru 
salem  above  my  chief  joy.' 

To  him  who  carefully  studies  the  literary  works  of 
D'Israeli,  ideas  like  those  we  have  briefly  described 
must  frequently  occur.  And  these  ideas,  we  believe, 
must  tend  to  enhance  appreciation  of  him,  both  as 
an  author  and  as  a  man.  Having  always  been  em 
inently  prosperous  in  the  matters  of  mere  material 
welfare,  the  inheritor  of  a  competent  fortune, 
trained  and  educated  in  the  midst  of  easy,  and 
even  felicitous  surroundings,  yet  adhering  with  fond 
sadness  to  the  traditions  of  his  people,  and  con 
stantly  re-presenting  to  his  own  mind,  and  to  a  not 
very  appreciative  public  in  his  adopted  land,  their 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  31 

ancient  glories  or  things  intended  to  remind  of 
those  ancient  glories — we  are  touched  with  feelings 
of  delicate  sympathy  for  the  unspoken,  but  the  deep, 
the  honorable,  the  patriotic  grief  which  such  conduct 
betokens. 

The  stories  of  D'Israeli's  lovers  are  the  more  in 
teresting  when  we  know  how  faithful  and  single  was 
his  own  only  passion.  The  attachment  which  the 
Christian  woman  gave  to  him,  is  said  to  have  in 
spired  a  reciprocation  almost  unique  in  its  fidelity. 
For  conjugal  love,  as  in  the  days  when  the  sons  of 
God  fell  in  love  with  the  daughters  of  men,  breaks 
down  the  barriers  of  nations  and  races.  Doubtless 
he  loved  his  wife  the  more,  because  in  her  prefer 
ence  for  him  of  a  hated  race,  he  imagined  himself 
to  perceive  a  cordiality  of  union  beyond  what 
might  have  been  attained,  where  no  such  barriers 
were  to  be  overleaped.  At  all  events,  it  has  been 
often  remarked,  that  this  gifted  woman,  besides 
being  his  wife,  was  his  'guide,  philosopher,  and 
friend':  and  when  rising  towards  the  acme  of  re 
nown,  in  the  old  age  of  both,  and  a  peerage  was 
offered  to  him,  he  at  first  declined  the  offer,  with 
the  request  that  it  should  be  bestowed  upon  her. 
Most  loving  and  most  knightly  conduct !  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  its  parallel. 

Early  as  D'Israeli  was  to  begin  to  rise  in  author 
ship,  and  late  in  politics,  it  was  in  the  latter  that 


32  BENJAMIN    DISRAELI THE    JEW. 

he  was  to  become  pre-eminent.  And  now  what 
contrast  in  the  qualifications  of  this  man  for  the  at 
tainment  of  literary  and  political  renown.  What 
contrast  in  the  methods  of  procedure.  A  traveller 
of  eighteen  years  represents  the  images  which  a 
sojourn  in  the  East  had  raised,  and  the  youth, 
apparently  so  ardent  and  precocious,  sees  himself  at 
twenty-two  an  acknowledged  rival  of  the  best  names 
in  literary  circles.  Few  there  were,  if  any,  who 
then  suspected  that  the  young  Israelite,  so  imagina 
tive,  so  languidly  sensuous,  thought,  or  even  hoped 
to  join,  much  less  to  lead,  in  the  great  struggles 
of  political  wartare.  Yet,  his  parlimentary  career 
even  then  was  probably  scarcely  less  an  assur 
ance  in  his  own  mind,  than  it  became  when  it  had 
well  begun.  The  patience  and  perseverance  which 
he  possessed  beyond  most  of  his  people,  joined  with 
extraordinary  genius,  assured  him  of  ultimate  suc 
cess.  It  is  interesting  to  speculate  upon  the  feel 
ings  with  which  he  might  afterwards  recur  to  his  first 
political  essays  and  their  results;  his  standing  as  a 
Radical  for  Wycombe  in  1832,  with  a  defeat;  his 
subsequent  defeat  before  the  same  constituency  in 
1835;  yet  another  defeat  in  the  same  year  as  a 
Conservative,  before  the  electors  of  Taunton;  and 
finally  his  return  in  1837,  at  thirty-two  years  of 
age,  for  Maidstone,  and  the  hisses  that  forced  him 
to  his  seat  when  he  first  attempted  to  address  the 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI THE    JEW.  33 

House  of  Commons.  Who  but  a  Jew,  a  patient, 
persevering  Jew,  could  have  uttered  those  memora 
ble  words — "I  have  begun  many  things  several  times 
and  have  often  succeeded  at  last:  I  shall  sit  down 
now,  but  the  time  will  come  when  you  will  hear 
me'?  Many  an  ardent  young  man,  with  or  without 
powers,  has  uttered,  or  felt  like  uttering  such  words; 
but  in  subdued  tones,  or  in  the  excitement  of  un 
guarded  passion.  But  this  young  Jew,  who  saw 
that  he  had  not  yet  gotten  in  hand  parliamentary 
usage  and  the  temper  of  the  House,  took  his  seat 
with  calmness  and  without  resentment,  assured  as 
fully  that  his  time  would  come,  as  that  it  was  not 
already  at  hand. 

It  suits  not  the  purpose  of  this  brief  notice  to 
consider  those  adroit  movements  by  which  he  soon 
obtained  the  leadership  of  the  'Young  England' 
party  that  rose  in  such  vigorous  hostility,  on  the 
part  of  the  aristocracy  and  gentry,  to  the  relaxing 
protective  policy  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  whom  he 
denounced  as  the  'Great  Middleman'  in  British 
politics;  nor  the  services  for  which,  under  the 
premiership  of  the  latest  Earl  of  Derby,  he  was 
rewarded  first  in  1852,  and  afterwards  in  1858, 
with  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer.  In 
all  these  times,  men  could  not  but  wonder  that  a 
man,  whose  imagination  in  unofficial  life  was 
prone  to  wander  in  oriental  fancies,  'had  taken 


34  UKNJAMIN    DISRAELI THK    JEW. 

time  to  study  and  learn  the  mysteries  of  trade 
and  finance,  and  was  as  familiar  with  the  business 
of  Lombard,  and  Bishopsgate,  and  Threadneedle 
streets,  as  he  was  in  the  traditions  and  the  lore 
of  the  East. 

The  alterations  in  those  later  parliamentary  com 
bats  between  him  and  Mr.  Gladstone  are  recent  and 
well  known.  The  ultimate  complete  overthrow  of 
the  latter,  beneath  which  he  so  passionately  and 
vainly  writhed,  is  a  theme  on  which  we  used  to 
read  in  the  daily  morning  newspapers.  The  irregu 
lar  statesmanship  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  his  oscillations 
between  liberality  and  narrowness,  in  spite  of  his 
consummate  eloquence  and  his  great  natural  pow 
ers,  could  not  fail  to  bring  in  time  the  result  which 
his  adversary  long  foresaw,  and  for  which  he  so 
patiently  waited.  His  conduct  towards  Ireland, 
generous  as  it  was  by  comparison,  seemed  at  last 
only  a  condescension.  Though  bom  almost  in  sight 
of  that  unhappy  land,  it  was  not  until  Gladstone 
had  delivered  up  the  seals  that  he  went  to  visit  it, 
and  could  see  for  himself  the  traces  of  the  miseries 
that  several  generations  of  his  predecessors  had 
wrought.  A  factioni st  in  religion,  besides  assailing 
the  patriotism  of  a  large  number  of  his  fellow-citi 
zens  as  incompatible  with  their  religious  faith,  he 
wounded  and  alienated  the  most  gifted  and  thought 
ful  of  the  clergy  of  his  own  creed.  Since  his  fall, 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  35 

with  a  misplaced  sympathy  for  the  Photians  of  Tur 
key,  he  excused  and  endeavored  to  lead  his  coun 
trymen  to  admire  and  even  co-operate  with  the 
barbarous  policies  of  Russia,  domestic  and  foreign 
and  seemed  as  if  he  would  have  assisted  that  mon 
strous  despotism  in  expelling  from  Europe  the  un 
believing  Turk,  even  as  he  had  hoped  to  cast  out 
those  of  his  own  brethren  who  refused  compliance 
with  his  own  dogmatic  ideas  of  the  regulation  of 
public  worship. 

In  the  midst  of  these  vagaries,  the  patient  and 
persevering  Jew,  now  ten  years  advanced  beyond 
his  threescore,  never  having  either  rested  or  hasted, 
found  his  time  to  have  come  for  which  he  had 
waited,  and  which  he  had  long  foreseen.  It  did 
not  come  too  late  for  a  man  who  reckons  time  as  a 
Jew.  He  quietly  put  on  the  insignia  that  his 
younger  rival  had  been  required  to  lay  aside.  With 
a  foresight  even  beyond  that  of  his  kinsmen,  the 
Rothschilds,  he  made  haste  to  purchase  a  sufficiently 
controlling  interest  in  that  great  canal  connecting 
the  western  with  the  eastern  seas,  his  eye  already 
turned  towards  the  Levant  and  the  countries  beyond. 
A  felicitous  thought,  yet  far  less  felicitous  than 
that  which  moved  him  to  have  conferred  upon  his 
sovereign  the  title  of  Empress  of  India.  That 
vast  empire  like  the  peoples  of  the  Italian  provinces 
before  they  were  formally  endued  with  Roman  citi- 


36  BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW. 

zenship,  rendered  to  the  government  a  reluctant 
obedience.  But  cordial  subjection  had  never  yet 
come  to  those  teeming  millions,  because,  for  the 
most  part,  of  a  want  of  perfect  assimilation 
and  a  recognition  of  equality  with  their  fellow-sub 
jects  of  the  West.  The  nabob  whose  ancestors  had 
had  an  Ahasuerus  and  a  Porus  for  their  sovereigns, 
must  sometimes  complain,  if  only  in  secret  that  he 
was  called  a  British  subject,  and  his  monarch  en 
throned  in  a  small  island  thousands  of  miles  away 
in  the  German  Ocean.  It  was  therefore  a  sublime 
idea  thus  to  divide,  as  well  as  to  double  the  title  ot 
sovereignty,  restore  a  venerable  throne  that  had 
fallen,  and  place  upon  it  a  sovereign  whose  ances 
tors  could  be  numbered  for  a  thousand  years.  Af 
terwards,  it  was  money  wdsely  spent  when  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  their  future  Emperor,  was  sent  to 
visit  this  mighty  people,  and,  along  with  their  rajahs, 
hunted  the  tiger  in  their  jungles,  and  exhibited 
himself  to  the  multitudes  in  their  grand  processions, 
seated  in  state  upon  an  elephant,  as  in  the  days  of 
their  ancient  splendor.  The  idea  was  Asiatic,  and 
it  was  Hebraistic.  For  did  not  the  ships  of  Hiram 
of  Tyre  bring  from  Ophir  to  King  Solomon  gold 
and  algum  trees  and  precious  stones?  And  did 
not  his  own  navy  fetch  every  third  year,  from  Thar- 
shish,  gold  and  silver,  ivory,  and  apes,  and  peacocks? 
Men  migjht  smile  and  deride,  and  complain  of  what 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  37 

they  called  'the  grossness  of  the  foppery'  of  a  use 
less  addition  and  a  vain  pageantry;  but,  wiser  than 
them  all,  this  descendant  of  Israel,  years  of  whose 
youth  had  been  spent  in  the  East,  knew  all  the  ful 
ness  of  their  significance. 

The  Turko-Russian  war  broke  out.  He  waited 
until  the  combatant  nations,  one  ruined  and  the 
other  well  nigh  exhausted,  had  come  to  a  truce,  and 
the  conquering  army  lay  in  sight  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  minarets  of  Constantinople.  Then  began, 
destined  to  progress  with  incredible  rapidity,  the 
most  consummate  statesmanship  that  England  has 
seen  in  a  hundred  years.  We  are  too  near  the 
Berlin  Conference  to  see  all  the  vastness  of  its  at 
tendants  and  its  results.  All  Europe  opened  its 
eyes,  and  so  did  all  Asia,  or  such  parts  of  it  as  had 
eyes  that  could  be  opened,  at  the  announcement 
that  Cyprus  had  been  ceded  to  the  British  crown, 
and  that  this  cession  was  not  to  be  considered  as 
among  the  questions  that  were  to  be  discussed  by 
the  plenipotentiaries.  The  suddenness,  the  audac 
ity  with  which  this  feat  was  accomplished  seemed 
to  have  astounded  the  world  so  far  as  to  hinder  it 
from  framing  and  uttering  a  complaint,  before  Sir 
Garnett  Wolseley  was  in  possession  of  the  purchased 
island,  and  the  adventurous  youth  of  Great  Britain 
were  already  emigrating  to  its  fertile  shores.  Pro 
phetic  was  this  acquisition  of  what  the  great  Hebrew 


38  BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW. 

desired  from  the  review  of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano. 
Little  concern,  it  is  probable,  had  he  individually 
for  the  Danubian  principalities  and  the  Turkey  in 
Europe.  It  was  Turkey  in  Asia  to  which  his  eyes, 
along  with  his  heart,  were  turned — the  land  of  his 
forefathers,  and  the  lands  with  which  his  forefathers 
had  made  wars  and  alliances,  of  the  Assyrian,  the 
Persian,  the  Mede,  the  land  of  the  palm  and  cedar, 
the  fig  tree  and  olive.  Europe  might  settle  the 
West  for  themselves;  England,  now  so  strangely 
under  the  lead  of  a  Hebrew,  finds  her  share,  and 
is  content  with  it,  in  the  possession  of  part  and  the 
protectorate  of  the  rest  of  the  East. 

And  all  this  without  war!  A  mighty  conquest, 
and  attained  by  the  arts  of  peace.  The  peace  of 
Europe,  at  least  of  eastern  Europe,  in  all  human 
probability,  seemed  to  be  better  ascertained  than 
it  had  been  at  any  time  within  a  century. 

As  for  the  part  that  England  has  played  and  the 
aquisitions  that  she  has  made,  all  their  magnitude 
can  only  be  imagined;  yet  they  already  show  some 
what  for  themselves  in  the  wonder  with  which  the 
eyes  of  all  mankind  were  turned  to  DTsraeli.  The 
aged  Gortchacoff  looked  grimly  to  see  given  to 
another,  those  prizes  that  an  expensive  and  mur 
derous  war  had  been  waged  to  win  for  himself; 
while  Bismarck,  who  by  material  superiority  had 
conquered  for  Prussia  the  States  lying  on  the  north, 


HF.NJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THK  JEW.  39 

contracted  his  heavy  brows  to  think  that  a  dog  of  a 
Jew,  without  blood  and  almost  in  silence,  had  made 
peaceful  conquests  overpassing  his  own,  and  stood 
before  himself  that  day  the  foremost  man  of  Europe. 

What  Cyprus  is  to  become  under  British  control 
we  may  conjecture  in  part  from  what  has  been 
made  of  Gibraltar,  and  Malta,  and  what  the  great 
statesmen  of  the  ages  have  been  accustomed  to 
make  of  those  positions  which,  in  the  language  of 
Philip  of  Macedon,  are  called  'the  fetters'  of  coun 
tries.  We  know  what  Cyprus  was  to  the  Phoenician, 
the  Greek,  the  Persian,  thirty  centuries  ago  and 
downward,  when  its  more  than  million  people  sat 
and  languished  among  the  almost  spontaneous  gifts 
of  its  corn,  and  wine,  and  oil,  and  where  the  frolic 
goddess,  sprung  from  the  Sea-foam,  had  her  favorite 
bowers,  and  listened  to  the  secrets  of  its  large-eyed 
maidens.  It  now  belongs  to  a  civilization  that 
will  know  how  to  develop  those  resources  that  were 
unknown  and  uninquired  of  by  the  luxurious  inhab 
itants  of  Salamis,  Amatteus,  Paphos,  Leona  and 
Idalium.  How  complete,  how  grand  that  cordon  of 
'fetters'  which,  by  the  acquisition  of  this  island  and 
the  Suez  Canal,  now  extends  from  Gibraltar  on  the 
western  gate  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  Aden  on  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  Red  Sea! 

In  this  culmination,  how  must  have  felt  this  man, 
one  of  a  long  persecuted  and  universally  exiled  race ! 


4O  BENJAMIN    1)  ISRAELI THE    JEW. 

What  did  those  eyes  see  or  imagine  they  saw,  as  they 
looked  towards  the  ancient  city  and  the  sepulchers  of 
his  fathers?  Yes,  the  Jew  is  a  Jew.  Conversion 
to  Christianity  abates  not,  but  multiplies  the  yearn 
ings  for  Jerusalem.  Conversion  to  Christianity, 
to  the  objects  of  former  ceaseless  veneration,  has 
added  Gethsemane,  the  Mount  of  Crucifixion,  the 
Holy  Sepulchre;  and  even  the  ruined  Temple  has  a 
new  and  grander  attraction  in  the  recognition,  how 
ever  late  and  reluctant,  that  its  walls  once  re-echoed 
to  the  words  of  'God  manifest  in  the  flesh,'  who  had 
condescended  to  be  born  of  a  Virgin  daughter  of 
Jerusalem.  We  have  seen  with  what  fondness  the 
Ratisbons  are  striving  for  the  establishment  of 
Christian  institutions,  and  we  have  listened  to 
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's  Elijah,  when  we  needed 
not  to  be  told  that  it  was  a  Jew  who  so  sang  and 
wailed  that  we  almost  imagined  we  could  hear  the 
great  prophet,  as,  having  fled  from  Jezebel,  he  cast 
himself  down  beneath  the  juniper  tree  in  the  wilder 
ness,  and  prayed,  'It  is  enough;  now,  O  Lord,  take 
away  my  life!  for  I  am  not  better  than  my 
fathers.' 

The  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  Knight  of  the  Garter ! 
For  such  services,  so  flattering  to  her  person  and  so 
contributory  to  her  glory,  could  not  pass  without 
distinguishing  rewards  from  a  gracious  sovereign, 
Therefore — 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  41 

'About,  about! 

Search  Windsor  Castle,  elves,  within,  without, 
Strew  good  luck,  ouphes,  on  every  sacred  room, 
That  it  may  stand  till  the  perpetual  doom, 
In  state  as  wholesome,  as  in  state  'tis  fit; 
\Vorthy  the  owner,  and  the  owner  it. 
The  several  chairs  of  order  look  you  scour 
\Vith  juice  of  balm,  and  every  precious  flower; 
Each  fair  instalment,  coat  and  several  crest, 
With  loyal  blazon,  ever  more  be  blest ! 
And  nightly,  meadow-fairies,  look,  vou  sing, 
Like  to  the  Garter's  compass,  in  a  ring  : 
The  expressure  that  it  bears,  green  let  it  be, 
More  fertile  fresh  than  all  the  field  to  see  ; 
And,  Honi  soit  qui  mal  y  pense,  write 
In  emerald  tufts,  flowers  purple,  blue  and  white, 
Like  sapphire,  pearl  and  rich  embroidery, 
Buckled  below  fair  knighthood's  bending  knee.' 

To  others,  this  title  and  this  most  exalted  of  so 
cial  distinctions  seemed  late  in  coming.  Not  so 
to  the  patient,  persevering  Jew.  We  have  seen 
how,  a  few  years  before,  he  had  waived  a  peerage 
in  favor  of  his  wife.  For  this  waiver  there  was  yet 
another  motive  besides  conjugal  fondness  and 
gratitude.  The  acme,  the  highest  height  had  not 
yet  been  attained  by  the  commoner.  He  remem 
bered  how  the  prestige  of  Pitt  had  been  lost  by  a 
too  ready  acceptance  of  the  Earldom  of  Chatham. 
When  the  long  struggle  with  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
terminated,  and  in  great  part  by  means  of  his  ad 
versary's  overweening  confidence,  leading  him  to 
the  commission  of  blunders  too  great  to  be  retrieva 
ble,  then,  with  the  dignity  of  one  who  feels  that  he 


42  BENJAMIN    D'lSRAELI THE    JEW. 

is    receiving  his   own,    he    took    the  golden  prize. 
How  serene  the  aged  Jew  in  the  possession  of  these 
almost    unexampled    honors !     Yet  further,  as  Earl 
of    Beaconsfield    he     added    largely    not    only    to 
the  power,  but  to  the  popularity  of  D'Israeli.      The 
favorite    of  the  Queen    was    also    the    idol   of    the 
the  people.      The  Knight  of  the  Garter  in  Windsor 
and  Buckingham  Palaces  was  adored  by  the  poorest 
in  Soho    and    Whitechapel.      Yet  how  serene,   how 
even  alone,  in  the  intervals  of  labors  with  the  cares 
of  power!     They    said    of  him    that  none  but  the 
wife  of  his  bosom   (if  even  she  did)   ever  found  en 
trance    into  the   secrets  of  his  interior  being.      In 
that  interior   being,  those  who   knew   and   admired 
him    most,   if  admitted  there,   would   perhaps  find 
little    with     which     to     sympathize.      The    fondest 
thoughts  of  Joseph,  even  while  riding  in  the  second 
chariot  of  Pharioh  and  dispensing  the  whole  pOAver 
of  Egypt,  were  of  his  kindred  in  the  land  of  Canaan. 
'Why  is  thy  countenance  sad,    seeing  thou  art  not 
sick?     This    is  nothing  else  but    sorrow  of  heart.' 
Thus   spake    Artaxerxes,  the    king,  to  his  minister 
Nehemiah,  the  son  of  Hachaliah.      'Then,  '  said  the 
Jew,    who  had    not    been    beforetime    sad  in    his 
presence,   'I  was  sore  afraid.      And   said    unto  the 
king,   Let  the  king  live  forever.      Why  should    not 
my  countenance  be  sad  when  the  city,   the  place  of 
my  fathers'  sepulchres,  lieth  waste,  and   the    gates 


BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI — THE  JEW.  43 

thereof  are  consumed  with  fire?'  The  sadness  of 
the  Jew  is  his  own,  be  he  a  convert  to  Christianity 
or  an  adherent  to  the  ancient  faith,  be  he  statesman 
and  lawgiver,  be  he  poet  and  musician;  only  his 
own  heart  knows  its  own  sadness,  and  that  heart  not 
often  strives  for,  and  perhaps  less  often  desires,  the 
sympathy  which  it  knows  it  to  be  vain  to  expect. 

In  contrast  with  this  serenity,  how  unbecoming 
the  passionate  contestations  of  his  late  rival,  that 
betokened  a  disappointment  and  an  envy  that  seem  to 
amount  to  anguish.  We  can  imagine  what  thoughts 
were  in  his  mind  when,  sometimes,  in  his  Sunday 
readings,  taking  up  perchance  the  Book  of  Esther, 
and  following  the  narrative  of  'Ahasuerus,  which 
reigned  from  India  even  unto  Ethiopia,  over  an  hun 
dred  and  seven  and  twenty  provinces,'  his  eye  light 
ed  upon  these  words :  'If  Mordecai  be  of  the  seed  of 
the  Jews,  before  whom  thou  hast  begun  to  fall,  thou 
shalt  not  prevail  against  him  but  shalt  surely  fall 
before  him.'  'And  the  king  took  off  his  ring  which 
he  had  taken  from  Haman,  and  gave  it  unto  Mor 
decai.  And  Mordecai  went  out  from  the  presence 
of  the  king  in  royal  apparel  of  blue  and  white,  and 
with  a  great  crown  of  gold,  and  with  a  garment  of 
fine  linen  and  purple :  and  the  city  of  Shusha  rejoiced 
and  was  glad,' 


A 
CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


A: 


S  fair  a  sight  as  one  can  wish  to  indulge  is  that 
of  a  great  man  in  whose  presence  one  feels 
no  dread  to  appear  because  of  any  sternness  of  look 
or  deportment  in  the  majesty  that  towers  so  loftily 
above  him.  The  worshipful  feeling  that  mankind 
ever  have  had  for  such  is  a  part  of  the  awe  im 
parted  by  Heaven  for  the  divine.  In  the  presence 
of  extraordinary  human  greatness  a  mind  endued 
with  this  higher  sensibility  cannot  fail  to  become 
solemnized  above  the  even  contemplation  of  those 
around  him,  his  equals  or  not  very  far  his  superiors, 
because  of  that  supreme  Greatness  to  which  it  sus 
pects  that  such  excellency  looks  with  far  clearer 
vision  than  its  own,  and  by  which  it  is  sustained, 
perhaps  inspired.  Tyrants  in  time  past,  some  with 
and  some  without  thrones  have  availed  of  this  tend 
ency  to  enact,  often  to  obtain,  service  not  due. 
Accidents  have  made  great,  or  made  so  appear,  a 
far  larger  number  than  prowess  of  arm  or  genius, 
and  many  a  fantastic  trick  these  have  played  with 
the  fortunes,  consciences,  and  lives  of  those  whom 
Heaven,  with  meaning  inscrutable  to  the  wisest, 

44 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS    MORE.          45 

has  allowed  them  to  mislead  and  oppress.  It  is  a 
temptation  not  easily  withstood.  Not  only  men  of 
great  parts  in  high  positions,  but  officials  down  to 
the  pettiest,  sometimes  seem  to  feel  that  they  must 
assume  forbidding  manners  in  order  to  repress  te 
merity  which  might  venture  to  approach  too  nearly. 
The  faculty  to  support  greatness  of  any  kind  or  de 
gree,  whether  of  gifts  or  place,  without  overbearing, 
is  rare.  The  precepts  of  Christ  touching  humility, 
as  manifestly  as  his  miracles,  declared  the  God. 
They  who  had  walked  with  him,  and  been  the 
special  recipients  of  his  confidence,  affection,  and 
promises,  must  become  as  little  children  or  be  unfit 
for  the  mission  and  destiny  to  which  he  had  ap 
pointed  them. 

These  thoughts  are  preliminary  to  a  brief  consid 
eration  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  a  man  who,  perhaps, 
was  as  near  being  devoid  of  this  infirmity  as  any 
very  distinguished  personage  that  ever  has  lived. 
The  characteristic  which  made  him  be  so  specially 
loved  in  his  own  and  all  subsequent  times  is  here 
named,  for  want  of  a  more  significant  English  term, 
sweetness.  The  French  have  a  much  more  expres 
sive  word — douceur.  M.  Olier,  founder  of  the  So 
ciety  of  St.  Sulpice,  in  his  little  book  entitled  Intro 
duction  a  la  Vie  et  aux  Vertus  Chretiennes,  has  an 
interesting  chapter  on  the  discussion  of  this  virtue, 
which  he  styles  "la  consommation  du  Chretien, 


46         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

Car,"  he  argues,  "elle  pre'suppose  en  lui  1'anne'an- 
tissement  de  tout  le  propre,  et  la  mort  a  tout  inte- 
ret :  en  sorte  que  ni  le  me'pris  1'irrite,  ni  la  perte  des 
biens  et  du  repos  de  la  vie  ne  le  tire  de  la  douceur." 
In  another  part  of  the  chapter  he  points  out  the  two 
ways  in  which  this  gift  so  rare  is  imparted:  one  di 
rectly  to  the  innocent  whom  God  is  raising  for 
special  designs,  the  second  obtained  by  the  natu 
rally  perverse  after  violent  efforts  attended  by  pain 
ful  fidelity;  the  former  is  by  "infusion,"  the  latter 
by  "acquisition."  History  has  recorded  not  a  few 
instances  wherein  men  in  great  estate  or  with  great 
powers  of  understanding,  by  the  exercise  of  tem 
perance  and  other  discipline  toward  self-mortifica 
tion,  have  succeded  in  subduing  to  reasonable, 
sometimes  admirable,  control  the  passions  that 
hinder  the  proper  work  and  full  enjoyment  of  exis 
tence.  Of  those  to  whom  this  gift  has  been  impar 
ted  by  infusion,  Sir  Thomas  More  seems  the  most 
conspicuous  of  all  mankind. 

Doubtless  it  is  not  so  easy  for  a  humorous  as  for 
a  serious  nature  to  lead  a  life  of  innocence.  Now, 
More,  inheriting  such  a  nature  from  his  father,  long 
one  of  the  judges  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  was 
even  in  boyhood  the  readiest  and  raciest  of  wits. 
When  a  page  in  the  household  of  Cardinal  Morton, 
Lord  Chancellor  under  Henry  VII.,  his  improvised 
interference  in  the  Christmas  entertainments  at  the 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          47 

palace  were  such  that  it  was  said  "he  alone  made 
more  sport  than  all  the  players  besides."  While  at 
Oxford  no  fun  was  to  be  compared  with  that 
aroused  by  him  and  Erasmus  in  the  interstices  of 
laborious  college  engrossments.  Yet  it  is  certain 
that  after  leaving  Oxford  he  pondered  for  some 
time  the  notion  of  becoming  a  monk  of  the  order  of 
Franciscans.  For  how  long  his  mind  was  thus  em 
ployed  we  know  not,  for,  unfortunately,  his  biog 
raphies  make  only  brief  allusion  to  it.  It  is  known, 
however,  that  he  once  lived  in  a  lodging  near  a 
Carthusian  monastery,  and  as  a  lay  brother  practised 
the  usual  austerities.  His  reason  for  leaving  this 
abode  and  giving  up  the  intention  which  had  led 
him  there  may  have  been  that  he  feared  his  love 
of  merriment  might  prove  an  obstacle  to  the  just 
performance  of  monastic  obligations,  or  that  in  the 
English  church  he  saw  so  much  of  the  tendency  to 
side  with  the  arrogant  despotism  of  the  Tudor  dy 
nasty,  which  was  becoming  more  and  more  defiant 
towards  the  See  of  Rome.  At  all  events,  he  with 
drew,  but  not  without  taking  with  him  his  hair  shirt, 
which  he  wore  until  his  death.*  Convinced  that 
the  priesthood  was  not  his  vocation  (for  the 
secular  was  becoming  as  corrupt  as  it  was  regard 
less  of  papal  authority),  he  decided  for  the  law. 

*This  shirt  may  yet  be  seen  in  a  convent  at  Spilsburg,  near  Bland- 
ford,  in  the  county  of  Dorset. 


48         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

"God,"  said  one  of  his  biographers,  "had  allotted 
for  him  not  to  live  solitary,  but  that  he  should  be  a 
pattern  to  reverend  married  men  how  they  should 
bring  up  their  children — how  they  should  employ 
their  endeavors  wholly  for  the  good  of  their  country, 
yet  excellently  perform  the  virtues  of  religious  men." 
It  was  a  brief  courtship,  wherein  the  only  item  of 
sentiment  was  of  a  kind  unique,  in  the  affairs  of  the 
heart.  It  seems  curious  that  a  young  man,  hand 
some,  gifted,  courteous,  after  finding  himself  in  love 
with  a  girl  of  a  family,  the  first  he  had  entered  since 
his  change  of  mind,  out  of  compassion  for  her  older 
sister,  who  might  repine  at  the  younger's  marriage 
before  her  own,  espoused  her  in  preference  to  the  one 
who  had  inspired  his  affections,  and  afterwards  lived 
with  her  in  unalloyed  happiness  until  her  death.  After 
a  decent  interval  he  took  to  wife  another  rustic, 
and,  notwithstanding  her  rude  ways,  her  seven 
years  seniority,  and  her  temper  not  of  the  best, 
appeared  to  live,  if  not  quite  as  happily  as  before, 
in  a  reasonable  contentment.  It  is  pleasing  to 
contemplate  how  such  a  man  may  live  with  such  a 
family.  In  his  house  at  Chelsea,  which  he  built  at 
the  age  of  thirty-four  and  ever  afterwards  resided 
therein,  besides  himself  and  his  new — rather  we 
might  say  his  old — wife,  dwelt  his  daughters,  their 
husbands  and  children.  In  spite  of  the  wife's  rude 
ness  and  her  being  given  to  scolding,  particularly 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          49 

for  her  husband's  want  of  proper  ambition,  the  head 
of  the  family  gained  entire  obedience,  and  even 
succeeded  in  inducing  her  to  learn  and  practise  for 
his  entertainment  on  several  instruments  of  music. 
Above  all  duties  in  that  household  were  those  of 
religion.  One  of  the  biographers  wrote  about 
the  performance  of  these  as  follows: 

u  His  custom  was  daily  (besides  his  private  prayers  with  his 
children)  to  say  the  seven  psalms,  the  litany  and  the  suffrages  fol 
lowing;  so  was  his  guise  with  his  wife  and  children  and  household 
nightly,  before  he  went  to  bed,  to  go  to  his  chapel,  and  there  on  his 
knees  ordinarily  to  say  certain  psalms  and  collects  with  them.11 

If  ever  a  family  man  performed  to  perfection  his 
domestic  duties,  surely  it  was  he.  An  enthusiast 
in  the  love  of  learning,  in  which  his  family,  and 
especially  his  wife,  were  not  competent  to  partici 
pate,  yet  he  would  seldom  give  to  it  any  of  the 
time  which  he  regarded  as  belonging  to  domes 
tic  intercourse.  In  a  letter  written  in  Latin  to  a 
friend  he  lamented,  yet  without  complaint,  thus: 

"The  greater  part  of  the  day  is  spent  on  other  men's  affairs,  the 
remainder  of  it  must  he  given  to  mv  family  at  home;  so  that  I  can 
reserve  no  part  to  myself — that  is,  to  study.  I  must  gossip  with  my 
wife,  chat  with  my  children,  and  find  something  to  say  to  my  serv 
ants;  for  all  these  things  I  reckon  a  part  of  my  business,  unless  I 
were  to  become  a  stranger  in  mine  own  house;  for  with  whomsoever 
either  nature,  or  choice,  or  chance  hath  engaged  a  man  in  any  rela 
tion  of  life,  he  must  endeavor  to  make  himself  as  acceptable  to  them 
as  possible  for  him  to  be.  *  *  *  All  the  time  which  I  can  gain  to 
myself  is  that  which  I  can  steal  from  my  sleep  and  my  meals,  and 
because  that  is  not  much  I  have  made  but  a  slow  progress." 

Already  eminent  at  twenty-four  as  a  ripe  scholar, 


50       A  CHARACTERISTIC' OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

an  eloquent  lawyer,  and  a  sheriff  with  judicial  as 
well  as  executory  powers,  he  was  then  elected  to 
the  Parliament  called  by  Henry  VII. ,  after  seven 
year's  intermission,  in  order  to  obtain  a  subsidy 
on  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  with  James  IV.  of 
Scotland,  and  he  was  the  very  first  who  in  that 
assembly  became  noted  for  eloquence,  and  that  in 
opposition  to  the  demands  of  the  crown.  The 
monarch  having  claimed  a  sum  far  in  excess  of 
what  was  just,  More  boldly  spoke  against  and  suc 
ceeded  in  dissuading  the  Commons  from  acceding 
to  it.  The  punishment  of  this  audacity  first  was 
vicarious.  The  culprit's  visible  property  being  too 
small,  and  his  invisible  dubious,  his  father  was 
shut  up  in  the  Tower,  until  the  payment  of  a  hun 
dred  pounds  fine,  on  a  charge  of  which  he  was  noto 
riously  innocent.  It  was  a  commentary  on  the 
treacherousness  in  high  places  and  the  already  far- 
gone  decline  of  the  English  hierarchy,  that  the  Bis 
hop  of  Winchester  tried  to  inveigle  the  courageous 
boy  into  a  confession  of  offence  which  would  have 
ruined  him  and  from  which  he  was  saved  through 
an  humble  priest  in  that  dignitary's  household.  The 
death  of  the  king  prevented  the  punishment  of  More 
himself,  which  only  had  been  delayed. 

How  often  are  disappointing  the  goodly  promises 
of  youth!  Newly  come  to  the  empire,  recalling 
exiles,  remitting  exorbitant  taxes,  and  dismissing 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          5  I 

profligates  from  the  court,  the  Roman  people  were 
happy,  believing  that  Caligula  had  inherited  all  the 
shining  qualities  of  Germanicus.  The  young  Nerc, 
a  model  of  condescension,  affability,  and  merciful 
ness,  when  called  upon  to  sign  a  warrant  for  the  ex 
ecution  of  some  malefactors  declared  that  he  wished 
he  had  never  learned  to  write.  So  Henry  VIII. , 
beyond  all  precedent  complaisant  and  popular,  was 
happily  contrasted  in  men's  recollections  with  the 
gross  despotism  and  the  mean  penuriousness  of  his 
father.  Yet  from  the  very  first  he  was  understood 
by  More,  who,  as  long  as  he  could,  resisted  the  so 
licitations  of  him  and  Wolsey  to  give  up  his  pro 
fession  and  take  service  under  the  government. 
The  minister  wanted  him  not  more  because  of  his 
great  abilities  than  of  his  unambitious  dispositions, 
which  he  believed  would  shut  out  all  danger  of  rival- 
ship.  His  very  courage  recommended  him  to  a 
monarch  who  for  a  season  seemed  as  generous  as 
he  was  accomplished  in  person  and  understanding. 
When  a  ship  belonging  to  the  pope  had  been  seized 
in  an  English  port  for  an  alleged  breach  of  inter 
national  law,  and  More  had  pleaded  with  success 
the  cause  of  the  defendant,  Henry  generously  com 
mended  his  demeanor.  Feeling  that  he  might  be 
charged  justly  with  incivism  if  he  persistently  kept 
himself  from  the  service  of  his  country,  he  retired 
from  the  bar,  was  made  Master  of  the  Recuiests,  and. 


52          A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

having  been  knighted,  became  member  of  the  Privy 
Council.  It  was  then  that,  contrary  to  the  usage 
among  courtiers,  he  removed  to  Chelsea,  and,  rent 
ing  land  adjacent  to  his  dwelling,  let  his  family  en 
gage  in  the  raising  of  farm  products.  For  this 
home  he  had  the  love  which,  with  sound  minds  in 
sound  bodies,  Heaven  often  bestows  upon  those 
whom  especially  it  loves.  The  only  instance  of  du 
plicity  recorded  of  him  was  one  which  the  straitest 
casuist  must  have  forgiven.  Besides  the  time  spent 
at  meetings  of  the  council,  the  king  was  ever  sen 
ding  for  him  on  holidays,  and  even  at  nights,  to  be 
entertained  by  his  conversation  on  science,  litera 
ture,  divinity,  "and  such  other  faculties,"  but 
especially  for  the  sake  of  his  unapproachable  humor. 

"  When  he  perceived  his  pleasant  conceits  so  much  to  delight  them1'' 
(for  the  queen  shared  in  this  pastime)  "  that  he  could  scarce  once  in  a 
month  get  leave  to  go  home  to  his  wife  and  children,  and  that  he 
could  not  be  two  days  absent  from  the  court  but  he  must  be  sent  for 
again,  he,  much  misliking  this  restraint  of  his  liberty,  began  there 
fore  to  dissemble  his  mirth,  and  so  little  by  little  to  disuse  himself 
that  he  from  thenceforth  at  such  seasons  was  no  more  so  ordinarily 
sent  for." 

Have  we  not  pitied  sometimes  an  aged  clown 
who,  more  in  sadness  than  in  jest,  must  make  his 
jokes,  which,  more  than  any  serious  things  possible 
for  him  to  invent  or  reproduce,  helped  to  maintain 
him  and  his  dependents?  But  the  young  statesman 
concealed  his  redundance  of  fun  for  the  sake  of  so 
ciety  far  dearer  than  was  to  be  found  in  a  king's 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          53 

palace.  Henry,  graciously  compassionating  the 
decline  of  ease  in  the  presence  of  so  sublime  maj 
esty,  thought  to  reassure  him  by  appearing  occa 
sionally  at  his  home  in  Chelsea,  dining,  and  after 
wards  walking  with  him  in  his  garden,  the  while 
holding  his  arm  about  his  neck.  One  day,  in 
answer  to  congratulation  from  Roper,  husband  of 
his  daughter  Meg,  he  answered : 

"I  thank  our  Lord,  I  find  his  grace  my  very  good  lord  indeed,  and  I 
believe  he  doth  as  singularly  favor  me  as  any  subject  within  this 
realm.  Howbeit,  son  Roper,  I  may  tell  thee  I  have  no  cause  to  be 
proud  thereof:  for  if  my  head  would  win  him  a  castle  in  France  it 
should  not  fail  to  go." 

In  the  Parliament  summoned  in  the  year  1523 
More  was  made  Speaker  by  the  king  and  the  minis 
ter,  with  expectation  that  he  would  overawe  the 
Commons  and  force  them  to  grant  the  full  subsidy 
that  was  demanded.  Yet,  to  the  disgust  of  Wolsey, 
whom  it  pleased  to  be  present  on  the  occasion, 
More,  without  passion,  resisted  the  exorbitance, 
after  which  the  Cardinal,  unexpectedly  discomfited, 
said  fretfully  that  he  wished  that  he  had  been  in  Rome 
when  he  was  made  Speaker.  Still  Henry  did  not 
withdraw  his  confidence,  especially  his  affection, 
which,  perhaps,  was  stronger  than  what  was  felt  by 
him  for  any  person  whatsoever.  The  rivalry  which 
Wolsey  counted  upon  having  prudently  forefended 
sprang  from  the  very  things  that  had  seemed  least 
minatory.  The  total  absence  of  ambition  in  the 


54         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE- 

man,  the  most  learned,  eloquent  and  witty  as  he 
was  the  most  honorable  and  devout  among  all  the 
attendants  upon  the  court,  at  last  provoked  his 
jealousy,  and  he  sought  to  rid  himself  of  his  influ 
ence  by  having  him  sent  as  embassador  to  Spain. 
Whether  it  were  the  foresight  of  sore  homesickness, 
or  other  dangerous  malady,  in  such  terms  he 
besought  his  sovereign  not  to  send  a  faithful  servant 
to  his  grave  that  he  was  excused  and  shortly  after 
raised  to  the  chancellorship  of  the  duchy  of  Lan 
caster,  which  he  continued  to  hold  until  the  fall  of 
Wolsey. 

Never  were  two  colleagues  who,  so  similar  in 
some  respects,  were  so  unlike  in  the  rest.  Great 
scholars,  great  politicians  both.  Both  had  served 
king  and  country  with  distinguished  ability  at  home 
and  abroad.  One  gloried  in  power,  pomp,  and 
their  circumstance.  The  other  was  fondest,  fond 
only,  of  his  plain  country  home,  where,  with  his 
wife,  children  and  servants,  he  could  render  daily 
and  nightly  humble  worship  to  the  Most  High,  and 
enjoy  in  humble  gratitude  the  fruits  of  his  labors  of 
every  sort.  One,  a  prince  of  the  church,  performed 
his  priestly  functions  in  state  arrogant  as  magnifi 
cent,  with  marquises  and  earls  for  his  attendants, 
seeming  not  well  to  remember  how  meek  and  lowly 
was  the  Lamb  whose  unbloody  Sacrifice  he 
was  solemnizing.  The  other  in  the  silence  of 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          55 

eveningtide  led  his  household  into  his  simply  ap 
pointed  chapel,  knelt  in  humble  supplication  for  all 
that  they  knew  it  their  duty  to  pray  for,  and  then, 
after  reasonable  indulgence  in  chattings  usual  among 
simple  country-folk,  took  such  sleep  as  Heaven  be 
stows  upon  the  industrious  and  guileless.  Wolsey 
was  a  minister  of  two  mighty  sovereigns,  the  pope 
and  the  king;  a  delayer  and  a  caviller  with  one  who 
was  a  lover  of  righteousness  and  a  seeker  of  peace, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  flatterer  of  the  other  and 
an  abetter  of  his  ever-growing  despotism.  More 
was  a  faithful,  efficient  servant  to  one  of  these  po 
tentates  within  the  limits  of  official  obligation, 
beyond  which  neither  threatenings  of  danger  nor 
promises  of  highest  exaltation  could  present  even 
momentarily  a  temptation  to  invade  unjustly  the 
domain  of  the  other.  Wolsey,  more  exalted  in 
place,  was  jealous  of  More,  who,  in  spite  of  his  vir 
tues  or  because  of  them,  was  nearer  to  the  sove 
reign's  heart.  More,  never  envying  but  compassion 
ating  him  who  would  regard  him  as  a  rival,  kept 
himself  as  long  as  possible  from  the  eminence  on 
whose  summit  the  other  tottered  between  pride  and 
apprehension,  and  desired  only  that  he  might  be 
allowed  to  withdraw  wholly  from  the  court,  to 
which  he  had  come  with  reluctance,  and,  living 
constantly  in  the  bosom  of  his  family,  give  himself 
to  his  profession,  to  philosophy,  and  to  religion. 


56         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

The  real  character  of  Henry  VIII.,  theretofore 
hidden  from  all  eyes  except  those  of  More,  was  de 
veloped  when  Anne  Boleyn  had  grown  up  to  the 
beauty  whose  attractions  he  could  not  resist.  By 
some,  only  a  few,  writers  More  has  been  blamed  for 
apparent  dissimulation  in  declining  at  first  to  as 
sume  in  the  matter  of  the  king's  divorce  the  attitude 
that  he  afterwards  maintained.  Yet  it  seems 
strange  that  this  integrity,  made  so  illustrious  at 
the  end  of  this  case,  should  have  been  questioned 
by  any  thoughtful  mind  during  the  period  through 
which  its  discussion  was  protracted.  The  learned 
world  seemed  to  be  divided  in  opinion  on  the  legal 
ity  of  a  marriage  contracted  as  that  with  Queen 
Catherine.  In  the  existing  condition  of  European 
civilization  it  was  not  a  question,  if  indeed  it  ought 
ever  to  have  been,  for  laymen.  When  asking  his 
opinion  by  the  king  he  answered  by  referring 
him  to  the  writings  of  the  doctors  of  the  church. 
The  question  was  not  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  the 
marriage  with  Anne  before  the  former  had  been 
dissolved  in  pursuance  of  the  canons,  on  which 
More  could  never  have  felt  a  doubt;  but  it  was  a 
matter  on  which  the  most  able  and  cultured  minds 
throughout  Christendom  were  not,  or  seemed  not, 
agreed.  His  silence  was  of  a  part  with  his  modest 
nature,  which  shrank  from  the  expression  of  opin 
ions  outside  of  his  studies  and  official  duties.  Wol- 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          5  7 

sey,  vacillating  as  ambitious,  pursued  the  double 
course  that  ruined  his  fortunes,  embittered  his  life, 
and  blasted  his  fame.  In  his  integrity  the  unhap 
py  Catherine  never  had  had  confidence,  while  of 
More  she  was  accustomed  to  say  that  he  was  the 
one  sound  councillor  in  the  kingdom.  For  Wolsey 
it  was  indeed  a  great  day  of  redemption  when,  aged 
and  broken,  but  sustained  by  the  courage  which 
penance  and  endurance  had  imparted,  in  obedience 
to  the  summons  to  repair  to  London  and  answer  to 
the  charge  of  treason,  he.  rose  from  the  bed  of  death 
and,  journeying  as  far  as  Leicester  Abbey,  lay 
down  in  peace.  Not  for  him  the  glory  that  was 
shed  around  the  sublime  death  of  his  successor;  but 
not  too  far  below  was  the  resignation  enjoyed  when 
he  who  had 

"  Sounded  all  the  depths  and  shoals  of  honor" 

within  so  brief  while  had  nothing  to  call  his  own 
save  his 

"  Robe 
And  his  integrity  to  heaven." 

The  trust  reposed  in  More  by  the  king,  aside 
from  the  charm  of  conversation  and  bearing  that 
made  him  beloved  of  all,  was  of  a  kind  that  princes, 
however  despotic,  find  it  indispensable  to  put  in 
subjects  whose  competence  for  public  business  is 
recognised  universally,  and  whose  integrity  is  un 
questionable.  But  for  the  sweetness  of  his  dispo- 


58         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

sition  and  his  cheerful  religious  faith  he  must  have 
suffered  keenly  from  homesickness  during  so  many 
prolonged  absences.  An  admission  of  this  was 
made,  though  in  the  merriest  words,  in  a  letter  to 
Erasmus  written  at  Cambray,  whither  he  had  been 
sent  as  embassador  to  negotiate  a  treaty  between 
England,  France,  and  the  emperor.  On  his  return, 
after  a  success  far  beyond  the  highest  hopes,  he 
learned  at  Woodstock,  where  the  court  was  then 
sojourning,  of  the  destruction  by  fire  of  a  part  of 
his  dwelling  and  all  his  outhouses,  together  with  the 
year's  crops  stored  therein.  The  letter  written  to 
his  wife  on  this  occasion  is,  of  its  kind,  perhaps 
without  an  equal.  A  portion  of  it  is  subjoined: 

"Therefore,  I  pray  you,  be  of  good  cheere,  and  take  all  the  howsold 
with  you  to  church,  and  there  thank  God,  both  for  that  he  hath  given 
us  and  for  that  he  hath  left  us,  which,  if  it  please  hym,  he  can  in 
crease  when  he  will.  And  if  it  please  hym  to  leave  us  yet  lesse,  at 
hys  pleasure  be  it.  T  pray  you  make  some  good  ensearche  what  -rrry 
poore  neighbours  have  loste,  and  bidde  them  take  no  thought  there 
fore,  and  if  I  shold  leave  myself  not  a  spone,  there  shall  no  poore 
neighbours  of  mine  bere  no  losse  by  any  chance  happened  in  my 
house.  I  praye  you  be,  with  my  children  and  howsold,  merry  in  God. 
And  devise  somewhat  with  your  friends  what  way  wer  best  to  take 
for  provision  to  be  made  for  corne  for  our  howsold  and  sedethys  yere 
coming,  if  ye  thinke  it  good  that  we  keepe  the  ground  still  in  our 
hands.  And  whether  ye  think  it  good  yit  we  so  shall  do  or  not,  yit 
I  think  it  wer  not  best  sodenlye  thus  to  leave  it  all  up,  and  to  put 
away  our  folk  of  our  farme,  till  we  have  somewhat  advised  us 
thereon.  Howbeit,  if  we  have  more  nowe  than  we  shall  neede,  and 
which  can  get  the  other  maisters,  ye  may  then  discharge  us  of  them. 
But  I  Avoid  not  any  were  sodenlye  sent  away  he  wote  not  nere 
wither." 

If  history,  outside  of  the  Saints,  can  show  a  more 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          59 

illustrative  example  of  cheerful  pursuance  in  the 
line  of  the  lessons  of  the  Redeemer,  we  should  like 
it  to  be  pointed  out. 

If  Wolsey  had  not  been  a  Christian  and  a  peni 
tent,  anguishing  must  have  been  his  grief  at  the 
quick  rise  upon  his  ruin  of  the  modest  countryman 
of  Chelsea,  of  whose  ambitions  he  had  lived  in  no 
dread  while  he  was  revelling  in  that 

"  World  of  wealth  he  had  drawn  together 

For  his  own  ends,  indeed,  to  gain  the  popedom." 

Yet,  when  reflection  had  subdued  him,  the  poet  well 
might  imagine  such  a  dialogue  as  this: 

WOLSEY. — What  news  abroad? 

CROMWELL. —  The  heaviest  and  the  worst 

Is  your  displeasure  with  the  king. 

WOLSEY. —  God  bless  him! 

CROMWELL. — The  next  is,  that  Sir  Thomas  More  is  chosen 
Lord  Chancellor  in  your  place. 

WOLSEY. —  That's  somewhat  sudden: 

But  he  is  a  learned  man.     May  he  continue 
Long  in  his  highness'  favor,  and  do  justice 
For  truth's  sake  and  his  conscience;  that  his  bones 
When  he  has  run  his  course,  and  sleeps  in  blessings, 
May  have  a  tomb  of  orphans'  tears  wept  on  them. 
What  more? 

CROMWELL. — That  Cranmer  is  returned  with  welcome, 
Install'd  Lord  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

WOLSEY. — That's  news  indeed. 

CROMWELL. —  Last,  that  the  Lady  Anne, 

Whom  the  king  hath  in  secrecy  long  married. 
This  day  was  received  in  open  as  his  queen, 
Going  to  chapel;  and  the  voice  is  now 
Only  about  her  coronation. 

WOLSEY. — There  was  the  weight  that  pull'd  me  down. 

The  call  to  the  lord  chancellor  was  obeyed  by 


60          A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF   SIR  THOMAS   MORE. 

More  with  much  reluctance.      In  his  speech,  when 
installed,  he  said : 

"  I  have  been  drawn  by  force,  as  the  king's  majesty  often  professeth, 
to  his  highness'  service  as  a  courtier;  but  to  take  this  dignity  upon 
me  is  most  of  all  against  my  will;  yet  such  is  his  highness'  benignity, 
such  is  his  bounty,  that  he  highly  esteemeth  the  small  dutifulness  of 
his  meanest  subjects,  and  seeketh  still  magnificently  to  recompense 
his  servants.  *  *  *  It  is  a  burthen,  not  a  glory;  a  care,  not  a  dig 
nity.  *  *  *  When  I  look  upon  this  seat;  when  I  think  how  great  and 
what  kind  ot  personages  have  possessed  this  place  before  me;  when 
I  call  to  mind  who  he  was  that  sat  in  it  last  of  all,  a  man  of  what 
singular  wisdom,  of  what  notable  experience,  what  a  prosperous  and 
favorable  fortune  he  had  for  a  great  space,  and  how  at  last,  de 
jected  with  heavy  downfall,  he  hath  died  inglorious — I  have  cause 
enough  by  my  predecessor's  example  to  think  honor  but  slippery  and 
this  dignity  not  so  grateful  to  me  as  it  may  seem  to  others.  *  *  * 
Wherefore  I  ascend  this  seat  as  a  place  full  of  labor  and  danger 
void  of  all  solid  and  true  honor;  the  which  by  how  much  the  higher 
it  is,  by  so  much  greater  fall  I  am  to  fear,  as  well  in  respect  of  the 
very  nature  of  the  thing  itself  as  because  lam  warned  by  this  late 
fearful  example." 

Of  his  deportment,  both  as  judge  of  Common- 
law  courts  and  in  Chancery,  nothing  ever  has  been 
said  but  what  was  in  his  praise.  True  to  the  be 
hests  both  of  Law  and  Equity,  yet,  whenever  consis 
tently  with  these,  he  yielded  to  the  suggestions  of 
compassion  and  charity.  To  poor  litigants  he  was 
particularly  gracious,  and  many  times  remitted  to 
them  the  fees  that  were  perquisites  of  his  office. 
He  was  the  first  English  judge  to  maintain  that  the 
dispute  (never  yet  fully  decided)  between  Law  and 
Equity,  might  be  ended  by  assigning  to  only  one 
court  adjudication  of  the  claims  of  each.  A  man 
upright  as  he  was  learned  could  not  but  look  with 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          6 1 

disfavor  upon  the  continued  jealousies  of  two  tribu 
nals,  the  province  of  each  being  protection  of  the 
citizen  in  all  of  his  legal  rights.  On  this  question 
many  of  the  greatest  minds  from  that  period  until 
now  have  differed.  In  furtherance  of  his  peculiar 
views  he  often  in  private  appealed  to  the  Law  judges 
to  abate  some  of  the  rigor  of  their  rulings,  and 
whenever  not  able  to  succeed  in  such  appeals  he 
resolutely  enjoined  the  execution  of  their  judgments 
when  to  him  they  seemed  unconscionably  strict 
in  accord  with  Law,  which  by  reason  of  its  univer 
sality  is  not  adequate  for  every  species  of  equita 
ble  relief.  Once  he  invited  the  judges  to  dine  with 
him  at  Westminster,  and  while  in  the  midst  of 
excellent  Gascony  wine  and  other  good  cheer  he 
proposed : 

"That  if  the  justices  of  every  court  unto  whom  the  reformation  of 
the  rigor  of  the  law,  by  reason  of  their  office,  most  especially  apper 
tained  would,  upon  reasonable  considerations,  by  their  own  discretions 
(as  they  were,  he  thought,  in  conscience  bound)  mitigate  and  reform 
the  rigor  of  the  law  themselves,  there  should  from  henceforth  by 
him  no  more  injunctions  be  granted." 

When  they  declined,  after  they  had  taken  their 
leave  he  said  to  his  son-in-law : 

"I  perceive,  son,  why  they  like  not  so  to  do.  For  they  see  that 
they  may,  by  the  verdict  of  a  jury,  cast  off  all  quarrel  from  them 
selves,  and  therefore  am  I  compelled  to  abide  the  adventures  of  all 
such  reports." 

It  is  curious  that  out  of  the  decrees  made  during 
his  chancellorship  there  should  be  but  one  that  has 


62          A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

descended  to  us,  and  that  one  of  the  parties  liti 
gant  should  have  been  his  own  wife.  Lady  More, 
a  good  wife  and  stepmother,  yet  had  her  own  opin 
ions  about  some  things,  and  not  unfrequently  sought 
to  enforce  them,  even  with  an  ejaculation  as  threat 
ening  as  tilly  vally! — all  of  whose  import  was 
known,  possibly,  to  none  except  herself. 

"It  happened  on  a  time  that  a  beggar-woman's  little  dog,  which 
she  had  lost,  was  presented  for  a  jewel  to  Lady  More,  and  she  had 
kept  some  se'night  very  carefully;  but  at  last  the  beggar  had 
notice  where  the  dog  was;  and  presently  she  came  to  complain  to 
Sir  Thomas,  as  he  was  sitting  in  his  hall,  that  his  lady  withheld  her 
dog  from  her.  Presently  my  lady  was  sent  for,  and  the  dog  brought 
with  her;  which  Sir  Thomas  taking  in  his  hands,  caused  his  wife 
because  he  was  she  worthier  person,  to  stand  at  the  upper  end  of  the 
hall,  and  the  beggar  at  the  lower  end;  and  saying  that  he  sat  there 
to  do  every  one  justice,  he  bade  each  of  them  call  the  dog;  which, 
when  they  did  the  dog  went  presently  to  the  beggar  forsaking  mv  lady. 
When  he  saw  this,  he  bade  my  lady  be  contented,  for  it  was  none  of 
hers;  yet  she,  repining  at  the  sentense  of  my  lord  chancellor,  agreed 
with  the  beggar,  and  gave  her  a  piece  of  gold  which  would  well  have 
bought  three  dogs,  and  so  all  parties  were  agreed;  every  one  smil 
ing  to  see  his  manner  of  inquiring  out  the  truth." 

The  same  sweetness  was  manifested  in  his  filial  as 
in  other  relations.  His  father  continued,  although 
past  ninety  years,  to  sit  as  one  of  the  puisne  judges 
of  the  King's  Bench,  and  for  him  the  affection  of 
this  son  was  just  as  it  was  when  as  a  little  child  he 
was  dandled  upon  his  knee.  It  was  his  daily  habit, 
when  repairing  to  his  own  court,  first  to  enter  that 
of  the  King's  Bench,  kneel,  ask,  and  receive  the 
old  man's  blessing.  When  the  latter  died,  weeping 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE.          63 

as  a  young  child  would  have  wept,  he  embraced  his 
body  while  commending  to  heaven  the  soul  that 
had  departed.  At  length,  as  he  had  foreseen  from 
the  period  when,  grown  weary  of  faded  beauty,  the 
king  turned  his  eyes  upon  Anne,  the  time  of  trial 
came — it  cannot  be  called  temptation,  for  it  does 
not  appear  that  at  any  time  he  hesitated  what  he 
must  do  when  demand  would  be  made  upon  him 
for  co-operation  of  a  kind  that  his  conscience  must 
condemn.  When  the  demand  came,  in  the  kneeling 
suppliant  before  him  Henry  saw,  and  he  knew  it,  a 
courage  intrepid  as  ever  fired  warrior's  breast  upon 
any  field.  His  resignation  was  accepted,  and  the 
subject  greatest  in  fame,  honor,  learning,  and  genius 
retired  to  his  simple  home,  having  saved  from  all  the 
avails  of  his  various  work  and  service  a  property 
whose  income  was  not  above  one  hundred  pounds 
sterling.  In  one  of  the  biographies  there  is  a  de 
lightful  account  of  the  merry  conference  had  with 
his  children — who,  with  their  consorts  and  children, 
had  always  dwelt  with  him — touching  the  still  more 
economical  living  to  which  they  thereafter  must 
descend  when  these  "must  be  content  to  be  contrib- 
utaries  together."  If,  beginning  with  Lincoln  Inn's 
fare,  and,  descending,  they  might  not  be  able  to 
maintain  even  Oxford  fare — 

"where  many  great,  learned,  and  ancient  fathers  and  doctors  are  con 
tinually  conversant,  *    *   *    then  may  we  after,  with  bag  and  wallet, 


64          A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

go  a  begging  together,  hoping  that  for  pity  some  good  folks  will 
give  us  their  chanty,  and  at  every  man's  door  to  sing  a  Salve 
Regina  whereby  we  shall  keep  company  and  be  merry  together,1' 

In  the  brief  respite  he  enjoyed  to  the  full  the  retire 
ment  which,  as  was  shown  in  his  letters  to  Erasmus, 
he  had  always  desired  in  order  that  he  might  live 
"only  to  God  and  himself."  But  when  a  committee 
of  bishops,  with  twenty  pounds  for  the  purchase  of 
a  dress  suitable  for  the  occasion,  brought  an  invita 
tion  to  attend  at  Anne's  coronation,  and  it  was  de 
clined,  the  new  queen  was  resolved  upon  his  death. 
All  the  world  knows  how  he  endured  her  ruthless 
pursuit.  There  is  to  be  witnessed  in  the  midst  of 
dangers  sometimes  a  quality  higher  than  the  highest 
courage.  It  is  the  uncomplaining,  almost  unsuffer- 
ing,  submission  of  innocence  to  injustice  that  it 
knows  it  can  neither  resist  nor  avoid.  In  More  this 
virtue  took  on  a  beauty  yet  more  exquisite  from  his 
temporary  child-like  apprehension  of  insufficiency  for 
the  ordeal  before  him.  It  makes  the  heart  leap  to 
be  told  of  his  joyousness  while,  after  his  appearance 
before  Cranmer,  Lord  Chancellor  Audley,  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  and  Cromwell,  a  royal  committee  ap 
pointed  for  his  trial  as  an  accomplice  with  the  "holy 
maid  of  Kent,"  he  was  returning  home  in  company 
with  Roper.  Said  the  latter: 

"•  I  trust,  sir,  all  is  well  you  are  so  merry." 

"  It  is  so  indeed,  son,  thank  God!  " 

u  Are  you  then,  sir,  put  out  of  the  bill  ?'r 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  65 

"  Would'st  thou  know,  son,  why  I  am  so  joyful?  "  In  good  faith,  I 
rejoice  that  I  have  given  the  devil  a  foul  fall;  because  Ihave  with 
those  lords  gone  so  far,  that  without  great  shame  I  can  never  go 
hack." 

It  was  the  gleefulness  of  a  child  after  successful  essay 
of  steps  for  which  its  young  strength  was  doubted 
to  be  fully  adequate. 

It  was  at.  his  own  trial  for  high  treason  that  ap 
peared  the  majestic  courage  of  whose  fame  four 
centuries  are  full.  Neither  desiring  nor  shunning 
martyrdom,  standing  upon  the  right  of  a  British 
subject  to  be  condemned  only  after  fair  trial  by 
his  peers,  he  put  the  marks  of  everlasting  infamy 
upon  his  judges  and  prosecutors  by  exposure  of  the 
gross  unlawfulness  of  their  proceedings  and  the  au 
dacious  falsehood  of  their  testimony.  His  cross- 
questioning  of  Rich,  the  solicitor-general,  the  most 
infamous  lawyer  that  ever  belonged  to  the  English 
bar,  reads  almost  like  a  denunciation  from  a  He 
brew  prophet.  Yet  when  the  trial  was  over  he 
lapsed  again  into  the  simple  merry-heartedness  that 
now  was  to  be  with  him  to  the  end.  It  appears 
almost  preterhuman,  his  absolute  freedom  from 
resentment. 

"  I  believe,  Meg, "he  said  one  day  to  his  daughter,  who  had  come  to 
visit  him  in  the  Tower,  "  they  that  have  put  me  here  weene  they 
have  done  me  a  high  displeasure;  but  I  assure  thee,  on  my  faith,  mine 
own  good  daughter,  if  it  had  not  been  for  my  wife  and  ye  that  be 
my  children  1  would  not  have  failed  long  ere  this  to  have  closed  my 
self  in  as  strait  a  room,  and  straiter  too.  But  since  I  am  come  hither 
without  mine  own  desert,  I  trust  that  God  by  his  goodness  will  dis- 


66          A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

charge  me  of  my  care,  and,  with  his  gracious  help,  supply  my  lack 
among  you."  So  his  compassionate  regard  for  the  sovereign:  "And 
surely,  daughter,  it  is  a  great  pity  that  any  Christian  prince  should, 
by  a  flexible  council,  ready  to  follow  his  affections,  and  bv  a  weak 
clergy  lacking  grace  constantly  to  stand  to  their  learning,  with 
flattery  be  so  shamefully  abused." 

As  for  the  vengeful  woman  who  had  been  the 
chief  leader  in  his  persecution,  the  feeling  indulged 
by  him  may  be  known  by  the  following  talk  with  this 
same  daughter : 

u  How  goeth  the  world,  Meg,  and  how  doth  the  Queen  Anne?  " 
"  In  faith,  father,  never  better;  there  is  nothing  else  in  the   court 

but  dancing  and  sporting." 
"  Never  better!     Alas!  Meg,  it  pitietli   me  to   remember  unto  what 

misery,  poor  soul!  she  will  shortly  come.     These  dances  of  hers  will 

prove   such  dances   that   she  will   spurn  our  heads  oil  like    footballs; 

but  it  will  not  be  long  ere  her  head  will  dance  the  like  dance." 

To  the  very  last  obedient  to  the  king's  pleasure, 
that  he  use  not  many  words  at  his  execution,  he 
answered:  "I  did  purpose  to  have  spoken  some 
what,  but  I  will  conform  myself  to  the  king's  com 
mandment."  And  so,  pronouncing  on  his  knees 
the  Miserere,  and  after  giving  a  piece  of  gold  and 
a  merry  word  to  the  executioner,  he  laid  his  head 
upon  the  block. 

In  fine,  whose  career  among  the  not  inspired 
and  the  unsainted  shall  we  compare  with  this  in  the 
matter  of  the  peculiar  characteristic  which  this  ar 
ticle  has  attempted  to  portray?  If  any,  that  of 
Socrates.  Yet  Socrates  was  and  showed  himself  to  be 
conscious  of  superiority  to  the  men  of  his  time. 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS   MORE.         67 

Certainly  the  courage  of  Socrates  never  has  been 
outdone.  Still  (though  not  with  boasting)  he 
would  tell  of  occasions  whereon  it  had  been  exert 
ed.  When  along  with  others,  ordered  by  the 
Thirty  to  bring  Leon  from  Salamis  that  he  might  be 
put  to  death, 

"I  made  known  to  them,"  he  said  afterwards,  "both  in  word  and 
deed,  that  (if  it  be  not  too  hard  an  expression)  I  did  not  care  at  all  for 
death  provided  I  did  nothing  unjust  or  unholy,  which  was  the  great 
object  of  my  solicitude.  The  great  authority  of  the  government  did 
not  influence  me  to  violate  any  Sense  of  right." 

He  knew  and  he  so  said,  that  the  calumnies  heaped 
upon  him  had  their  main  foundation  in  the  contem 
plation  of  his  superior  wisdom.  He  had  excited  an 
tipathy  long  and  general  by  refusing  to  speak  in 
terms  other  than  were  deserved  of  the  abuses  and 
follies  of  his  time.  Before  the  court  that  tried  him 
he  stood,  though  without  anger,  as  an  accuser 
rather  than  as  a  defendant.  If  there  was  pathos 
there  also  was  scorn  in  the  words  with  which,  after 
condemnation,  he  left  the  judgment-hall:  "It  is  now 
time  for  us  to  go  our  respective  ways,  I  to  die 
and  you  to  live;  and  which  of  us  is  going  on  a 
better  voyage  is  known  to  God  alone."  Of  such  a 
man  his  loving  biographer  could  say  well:  "To  me 
as  I  have  described  him,  he  seemed  such  as  the 
best  and  happiest  of  men  would  be."  Outside  of 
Christian  history,  without  doubt  he  is  the  most  illus 
trious  example.  Sir  Thomas  More,  his  equal  in 


68         A  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 

other  gifts,  had  the  unspeakable  advantage  of  having 
and  of  learning,  perfectly  as  is  possible  to  human 
nature,  the  precept  that  to  become  fittest  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  a  man  must  be  ever  as  a  child. 


A  MARTYR  TO  SCIENCE. 


1T\R.  Johnson  once  said  that  whenever  he  found 
*-*  himself  in  a  place  where  a  monk  of  former 
times  had  been,  his  feeling  was  to  kneel  and  kiss 
the  ground  on  which  he  had  walked.  It  was  a  bold 
and  a  startling  speech  for  the  people  and  the  times. 
It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  praise  the 
monasteries  of  the  Middle  Age,  although  we  know 
now  that  except  for  them  almost  all  of  the  little 
that  was  saved  of  the  learning  and  wisdom  of  the 
ancients  would  have  been  lost.  The  historians, 
philosophers,  and  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome,  such 
as  were  spared  in  the  ravaging  search  by  barbarians 
and  fanatical  Christians,  owed  their  rescue  to  the 
humble,  devout  men  who  dwelt  in  the  houses  built 
by  themselves  in  order,  by  separation  from  the 
world,  to  become  wholly  consecrated  to  religious  and 
charitable  uses.  Of  their  churches  at  York,  Dur 
ham,  Antwerp,  Amiens,  Cologne,  Strassburg,  and 
elsewhere,  each,  like  the  temple  of  Ephesus,  remains 
one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  Yet  the  names 
of  most  of  their  builders  died  and  were  buried  with 

them.     They  had  raised  these  temples  to  the  glory  of 
69 


70  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

the  Master  to  whom  all  their  being  was  devoted,  and 
when  their  work,  done  for  the  most  part  in  secrecy 
and  silence,  was  ended,  they  were  laid  away  in  their 
own  crypts  by  surviving  brothers,  who  then  at  once 
returned  to  their  own  unfinished  careers.  This 
was  all  as  the  departed  had  wished;  for  they  had 
looked  for  their  rewards  in  a  different  country  which 
they  had  been  allowed  to  foresee,  wherein  rewards 
were  richer,  more  precious  than  what  could  be  be 
stowed  by  men,  contemporary  or  to  come  in  future 
ages,  and  they  would  never  lose  any  of  the  prec- 
iousness  that  was  to  make  them  so  ineffably  dear. 

But,  turning  from  the  general  work  of  these  religious, 
a  brief  consideration  is  asked  of  an  individual  monk 
of  that  period,  who  in  the  picture-books  during  the 
childhood  of  the  oldest  among  us  was  represented 
as  a  malignant  sorcerer,  but  whom  now  all  the 
world  unites  in  commending  not  only  as  the  great 
est  of  his  class,  at  least  in  the  department  of  earthly 
science,  but  as  second,  if  to  any,  only  to  his  name 
sake  who  came  three  hundred  years  after  him. 

It  is  curious  to  contemplate  the  long,  winding 
course  taken  by  Greek  literature  after  its  decay  in 
Athens,  to  find  its  way  into  Europe,  and  first  in  the 
extreme  West.  Having  been  exiled  from  its  native 
country  and  found  a  temporary  sojourn  in  Alexan 
dria,  where  it  was  gradually  grafted  by  the  school 
of  Proclus  on  the  mystic  philosophy  of  the  East, 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  7 1 

again  banished  by  Theodosius,  it  was  hospitably 
received  by  Mahomet  and  his  followers,  and  later 
was  as  firmly  fixed  at  Cordova  as  in  Bagdad.  Thus 
introduced  by  the  Arabs  into  Spain,  the  Opydvov 
of  Aristotle  effected  vast  changes  in  the  methods  of 
Christian  theological  teaching  and  discussion.  Phil 
osophy,  termed  Scholastic  from  the  schools  insti 
tuted  by  Charlemagne,  became  absorbed  into  Scho- 
lasticTheology.  Herein  was  a  vast  change,  and  it 
was  wrought  necessarily  by  the  conditions  of  con 
temporary  thought.  Very  many  great  minds  in  the 
thirteenth  century,,  minds  of  extensive  and  varied 
cultivation,  were  among  the  enemies  of  Christianity. 
Learned  Arabs,  Greeks,  and  Hebrews,  sometimes 
it  was  found  difficult  to  oppose  in  debate  by  even 
the  most  gifted  of  the  Christian  clergy,  because  the 
latter  were  less  familiar  with  dialectic  principles. 
Thitherto  theology  had  been  taught  mainly  by  ref 
erence  to  the  traditions  of  the  church,  and  by  ap 
peals  on  disputed  points  to  the  authority  of  the 
Fathers,  as  those  writers  were  styled  who  came 
next  to  the  Apostolic  Fathers  who  had  been  contem 
porary  with  the  Twelve.  Acquaintance  with  Aris 
totle's  philosophy  after  its  introduction  by  the  Arabs 
into  Spain  led  naturally,  and  in  not  long  time,  to 
its  employment  in  religious  controversy,  and  it 
seems  curious  how  absorbed  became  not  only  lead 
ing  but  intellects  of  all  degrees  in  its  use.  One 


72  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

reason  doubtless  was  that  philosophy,  and  particu 
larly  occult  sciences,  the  Arabs  had  studied  much 
more  than  the  other  departments  of  Greek  literature, 
because  the  former  harmonized  to  some  degree  with 
their  own  studies  of  astrology  and  kindred  subjects. 
While  they  knew  Aristotle  well,  they  had  little 
knowledge  of  Homer  and  Sophocles.  These  last 
for  a  time,  and  a  long  time,  must  give  place  to  the 
former,  who  had  preceded  them  in  Europe.  Not 
that  the  poets  were  altogether  neglected,  but  these 
harmless  singers  were  submitted  to  harsh  treatment 
at  the  universities,  which  the  scholastics  dominated 
to  such  a  degree  that,  in  Oxford  especially,  during 
a  period  of  many  years,  heads  were  made  sore  by 
clubs  and  stones  for  no  other  cause  than  efforts  to 
put  other  Greeks  along  by  the  side  of  the  great  despot 
of  the  Lyceum.  Plato,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  would 
have  excluded  poets  from  his  Republic.  For  other 
causes  Aristotle  excluded  them  for  a  strangely  long 
period  from  Europe. 

In  the  mouths  of  disputants  of  all  grades  wrang- 
lings  must  become  numerous  like  the  sands  of  the 
sea-shore,  and  well-nigh  as  unprofitable.  Roger 
Bacon  was  the  first  to  find  out  clearly  their  absurd 
inutility.  He  had  studied  this  philosophy  first  at 
Oxford,  afterwards  at  Paris  and  when  he  became  a 
Franciscan  monk  and  returned  to  his  native  coun 
try,  having  taken  his  abode  at  the  friary  hard  by 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  73 

the  seat  of  the  university,  he  set  out  upon  that  bold 
career  which  was  to  be  attended  by  many  anguish 
ing  sufferings,  but  followed  in  time  by  undying  re 
nown.  No  man  of  his  generation  so  well  as  he 
knew  the  enormity  of  the  evils  which  were  to  be 
combated,  none  but  he  foresaw  the  trials  of  the  com 
bat,  For  the  feeling  had  for  philosophy  by  the 
Christian  prelates  had  come  down  to  them  from  the 
Greeks  along  with  the  books  wherein  mainly  its 
discipline  had  been  inscribed.  With  the  Greeks 
philosophy  was  regarded  as  a  something  sacred, 
almost  divine.  As  such,  it  was  a  desecration  to 
employ  it  for  mere  human  uses.  Roger  Bacon  was 
the  first  to  maintain,  if  not  in  the  same  words,  in 
precisely  the  same  spirit  as  his  illustrious  successor 
and  namesake,  that  instead  ot  man  having  been 
made  for  philosophy,  philosophy  was  made  for  man. 
Philosophy,  indeed,  had  come  down  from  heaven,  but 
not  for  the  purpose  of  being  enshrined  in  temples 
before  whose  altars  mankind  must  bow  in  adoration 
as  to  a  God.  But  it  was  a  gift  from  heaven  to  man 
to  be  accepted  with  thankfulness,  and  to  be  used,  not 
only  as  a  means  of  attaining  heaven  after  this  mor 
tal  being  shall  be  ended,  but  of  increasing  the  con 
veniences  and  pleasures,  and  alleviating  the  burdens 
and  sufferings,  of  this  lower  life — a  boon,  in  fine, 
to  be  made  available  in  every  sphere  of  man's  en. 
deavors  and  hopes  for  the  attainment  of  good,  spir- 


74  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

itual  and  temporal.  None  but  a  sublime  genius, 
and  brave  to  audacity,  could  so  have  opposed  him 
self  to  the  most  ancient,  universal,  deeply-set  prej 
udices  of  the  world.  His  courage  was  the  more 
magnificent  because  he  was  too  wise  not  to  foresee 
the  martyrdom  which  was  to  come,  the  sorest  ele 
ment  of  which  was  the  foreknowledge  that  it  was  to 
come  from  his  own  brethren. 

It  was  in  the  year  1240,  when  twenty-six  years 
old,  that,  having  learned  all  that  was  in  Scholastic 
Philosophy,  he  left  the  University  of  Paris  and  re 
turned  to  Oxford.  Long  afterwards  he  spoke  with 
deep  pain  of  the  years  upon  years  that  he  had 
wasted  in  study  to  him  barren,  both  at  the  universi 
ties  and  then  with  his  brothers  at  the  friary,  regret 
ted  that  he  had  not  sooner  begun  the  search  for 
the  material  good  which  it  was  the  chief  mission  of 
his  philosophy  to  teach  mankind.  Already  he  had 
become  well  cultured  in  languages  and  particularly 
so  in  mathematics.  It  was  when  he  had  begun 
with  experimental  philosophy  that  he  began  to 
speak  with  boldness  against  unquestioning  subjec 
tion  to  the  authority  of  antiquity  in  physics.  "We 
are  the  ancients."  No  saying  of  Lord  Bacon  has 
been  more  highly  lauded  than  this.  Yet  Roger 
Bacon  said  the  same  or  its  equivalent  three  hun 
dred  years  before  Francis  Bacon  was  born.  The 
authority  of  the  ancients,  founded  on  the  fact 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  75 

they  were  the  ancients,  was  ridiculous  in  the  mind 
of  this  young  monk.  In  what  the  world  calls  an 
cient  times  the  world  was  as  to  science  yet  in  its 
infancy.  We,  we  moderns,  are  the  ancients.  He 
would  not  discredit  the  achievements  of  man  when 
the  world  was  young.  But  the  world  is  like  man, 
its  life  as  his  life.  It  must  advance  and  does  ad 
vance  from  infancy,  through  childhood,  youth, 
young  manhood,  mature  age.  A  man  is  older  than 
a  child,  and  has  profited,  if  he  has  not  been  a  fool, 
by  the  experiences  of  childhood,  and  learned  by 
those  experiences  to  give  up  and  turn  away  from 
its  mistakes  or  fall  into  irrecoverable  disasters. 
There  is  much  that  is  touching  in  the  solemn  rever 
ence  and  the  fond  affectionateness  with  which  we 
remember  the  remote  past  even  in  our  own  lives. 
The  long  silence  of  those  from  whom  our  earliest 
lessons  came  leads  us  sometimes  to  feel  reluctant 
to  vary  from  their  teachings,  even  when  our  own  ex 
perience  has  shown  them  to  have  been  erroneous. 
Until  Roger  Bacon  ,  rather  until  long  after  his  time, 
so  had  mankind  at  every  period  felt  towards  the 
wise  men  of  former  periods.  There  seems  to  have 
been  a  feeling,  strong  like  a  conviction,  that  the 
teachers  of  remote  ages  were  taught  directly  from 
heaven,  and  taught  all  that  it  was  good  for  man 
kind  to  know,  and  that  it  behooved  those  who  came 
after  mainly  to  gather  up  by  pious  search  the  things 


?  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

that  during  the  lapse  of  time  had  been  lost  from 
the  inspired  wisdom  of  yore.  Such  a  condition  of 
the  mind  of  humanity  seems  strange  in  this  age, 
when  inquiry  has  gone  to  the  extreme  of  boldness; 
but  in  former  times  it  was  as  if  men  felt  that  the 
eye  of  God  was  upon  them  when  they  even  im 
agined  calling  in  question  the  sacred  wisdom 
which  the  wise  of  old  had  received  immediately 
from  his  mouth.  This  huge,  time-honored  tradi 
tion  the  young  monk  of  Ilchester  was  the  first  who 
dared  to  question.  "I  spent  twenty  years,"  he  said, 
almost  in  anger  with  himself,  and  referring  to  the 
natural  sciences,  "in  the  study  of  authority!"  And 
afterwards  he  wrote  these  audacious  words:  "Do 
you  wish  to  know  what,  if  I  had  the  power,  I  would 
do  with  the  works  of  Aristotle?  I  would  burn 
them  up!"  Nothing  like  this  had  a  human  being 
ever  dared  to  say  regarding  this  king  of  men,  whose 
reign  had  began  with  Alexander  of  Macedon  and 
was  destined  to  extend  two  hundred  years  yet 
longer,  to  the  times  of  Cosmo'de'  Medici. 

In  the  silence  of  his  cell  the  thought  had  come 
to  this  Franciscan  that  the  despotism  of  authority 
in  the  natural  sciences  must  be  overturned,  or  the 
world  remain  forever  in  ignorance  of  the  things 
which,  next  to  the  true  worship  of  God,  it  was 
most  important  to  know.  His  studies  had  led  him 
to  the  assurance  of  having  found  what  were  the 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  77 

means  for  this  overthrow  so  needed  for  the  weal  of 
mankind.  This  was  experimental  science.  In  the 
investigations  conducted  in  the  workshop  which  he 
had  built  he  had  ascertained  many  natural  facts, 
and  he  argued  that  the  material  world  was  full  of 
such,  created  therein  for  man's  uses,  which  philoso 
phy  not  only  did  not  know  but  would  have  taught 
and  commanded  to  ignore ;  and  then  he  wrote  these 
memorable  words:  "Experimental  Science  does 
not  receive  verity  at  the  hands  of  superior  sciences. 
It  is  she  who  is  the  mistress,  and  the  other  sciences 
are  her  servants.  She  has  the  right,  in  effect,  to 
give  command  to  all  the  sciences,  because  it  is  she 
alone  who  certifies  and  consecrates  their  resultants. 
Experimental  science,  therefore,  is  the  queen  of  the 
sciences  and  the  limit  of  all  speculation." 

Fully  convinced  as  to  the  justice  and  the  strength 
of  his  position,  he  began  that  system  of  inquiry 
which  was  to  devolve  the  greatest  part  of  his  credit 
upon  his  countryman  who  was  to  come  on  long 
afterwards,  following  his  ideas,  but  unrestrained  by 
authority  and  aided  by  the  discoveries  of  three  cen 
turies  which  had  been  made  mainly  by  accident. 
His  first  most  noted  endeavors  were  devoted  to  the 
reformation  of  the  Julian  Calendar.  Julius  Caesar, 
as  all  know,  had  reckoned  the  length  of  the  year  at 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  and  six  hours — 
a  wonderful  approximation  to  verity  in  the  existing 


78  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

state  of  astronomical  science.  The  error  of  some 
what  less  than  twelve  minutes  in  the  lapse  of  many 
centuries  had  induced  a  state  of  confusion  that  not 
only  wrought  much  inconvenience  in  general,  but 
interfered  more  and  more  seriously  with  the  regula 
tions  of  the  church  respecting  proper  times  for  the 
observance  of  days  of  special  religious  obligation. 
That  is  one  of  the  most  eloquent  letters  ever  writ 
ten  in  which  Bacon  appealed  to  Pope  Clement  IV. 
in  behalf  of  the  rectification  of  the  calendar,  whose 
defects  he  characterized  as  having  become  "intole 
rable  to  the  sage,  and  the  horror  of  the  astronomer." 
In  it  were  exhibited  the  solicitude  of  a  Christian 
priest,  the  eager  desire  for  certitude  of  the  man  of 
science,  and  the  winsome  courteousness  of  the  dip 
lomat.  It  is  most  touching  to  read,  after  his  allu 
sion  to  the  infidel  philosophers,  Greek  and  Arabian, 
his  appeal  to  that  liberal  and  enlightened  prince  to 
signalize  and  make  for  ever  renowned  his  pontif 
icate  by  an  action  that  would  be  as  benignly  ser 
viceable  to  Christianity  as  to  science.  The  hopes 
entertained  were  ended  by  the  death  of  that  emi 
nent  pope,  and  three  more  centuries  must  go  by 
before,  under  Gregory  XIV.,  would  be  accomplished 
what  Bacon  so  ardently  had  wished. 

It  is  sad  to  contemplate  this  unhappy  miscarri 
age.  That  great  genius  had  foreseen  the  invention 
of  the  telescope.  The  honor  bestowed  upon  Gali- 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  79 

leo  has  been  proven  to  belong  in  its  greatest  part 
to  Roger  Bacon,  and,  but  for  his  imprisonment  and 
other  persecutions,  there  is  little,  if  indeed  any, 
doubt  that  he  would  actually  have  invented  not  only 
that  instrument  but  the  microscope  also.  In  the 
Opus  Majus  submitted  to  Clement  occur  passages 
which  clearly  indicate  this  assumption.  Having 
noticed  the  curious  reflections  from  polished  surfa 
ces,  casting  images,  some  greater,  some  smaller  than 
what  was  real,  he  was  led  to  conclude  that  contin 
ued  experiment  might  produce  instruments  that 
would  magnify  to  degrees  according  as  human  in 
genuity  and  control  of  metallic  substances  could 
construct  them.  Mankind  never  has  had  too  much 
to  say  in  praise  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton;  yet  centuries 
before  him  Roger  Bacon  had  struck  out  the  path  in 
the  science  of  Optics  in  the  pursuit  of  which  this 
philosopher  attained  such  splendid  successes.  In 
the  contemplation  of  the  work  done  by  this  monk 
in  the  midst  of  circumstances  so  adverse  to  his  aims 
and  endeavors,  Humboldt  named  him  "La  plus 
grande  apparition  du  Moyen  Age." 

The  genius  of  a  man  who  could  have  escaped 
that  delusion  of  the  "philosopher's  stone"  which 
took  such  long  hold  upon  all  men's  minds  in  the 
Middle  Age  must  have  been  preterhuman.  Roger 
Bacon  believed  with  the  rest  in  the  transmutation 
of  the  inferior  metals  into  gold  and  silver;  yet  he 


80  A    MARTYR   TO    SCIENCE. 

was  not  only  free  from  the  superstitions  which  were 
indulged  by  some  of  the  alchemists,  but  his  practi 
cal  sense  rejected  that  infinity  of  fantastic  imagina 
tions  respecting  the  influence  of  the  planets  and 
other  agencies  in  hastening  or  retarding  the  process 
of  obtaining  the  lapis  philosophorum — a  mineral 
substance  which,  by  mixing  with  the  base,  would 
transmute  them  into  the  precious  metals.  He  sim 
ply  believed  that  the  metals  were  compound,  and 
that  repeated  experiment  would  lead  to  the  dis 
covery  of  the  processes  employed  by  nature  in 
those  combinations.  In  all  his  metallurgic  work, 
limited  as  it  was  in  comparison  with  his  other  in 
the  service  of  science,  the  mere  search  for  gold  and 
silver,  it  is  most  probable,  was  never  among  his 
thoughts,  especially  his  desires.  A  devotee  to  ex 
perimental  science,  in  what  time  he  could  get  from 
his  religious  duties,  he  took  an  interest  in  metallur 
gy,  as  he  did  in  other  branches.  If  he  fell  into  the 
general  error  respecting  the  convertibility  of  the 
inferior  metals,  the  error,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned, 
was  free  as  well  from  the  superstitions  as  from  the 
frauds  into  which  many  who  dealt  in  such  practic 
es  were  led.  Partly  these  superstitions,  mainly  these 
frauds,  are  what  induced  the  infamy  which  has  been 
attached  to  the  name  of  alchemy.  Yet  science  ad_ 
mits  that  it  owes  much  to  the  alchemists.  To  one  and 
another  of  the  numerous  adepts  among  them  is  to  be 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  8 1 

attributed  not  only  the  discovery  of  phosphorus  but 
the  concentrated  acids;  and  it  is  almost  certain  that 
to  Roger  Bacon  in  special  mankind  is  indebted  for 
the  invention  of  gunpowder.  That  a  pious  and  en 
lightened  priest — enlightened  far  above  all  the  men 
of  his  time — should  have  believed  in  the  elixir  vitcn 
which  was  to  abolish  death  is  an  idea  too  absurd  to 
be  considered  for  a  moment  in  connection  with  him. 
In  Sir  F.  Palgrave's  fiction,  The  Merchant  and  the 
Friar,  there  occurs  what  seems  a  just  opinion  about 
the  connection  of  Roger  Bacon  with  the  vagaries  of 
the  alchemists  in  general.  He  was  simply  dazzled, 
according  to  this  writer,  by  his  inability,  on  account 
of  the  existing  paucity  of  known  natural  principles, 
to  comprehend  the  possible  extent  of  the  wonder 
ful  discoveries  that  were  continually  being  elimina 
ted  in  his  workshop,  and  doubtless  he  suffered  from 
the  impostures  practised  in  his  name  by  his  servants 
and  others  upon  the  credulity  and  fears  of  the  vulgar. 

And  now  let  us  consider  briefly  the  penance  that 
this  illustrious  man  underwent  for  his  devotion  to 
the  interest  of  science — a  penance  more  remarkable 
and  more  to  be  compassionated  because  he  must 
have  foreseen  its  coming,  and  that  from  those  of  his 
own  household. 

That  preternatural  gifts  in  remote  former  times 
were  bestowed  by  the  Creator  upon  some  of  the  hu 
man  race,  or  at  least  that  such  bestowal  was  per- 


82  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

mitted  by  Him,  and  even  in  cases  wherein  the  re 
cipients  were  ignorant  of  Him  or  hostile  to  Him, 
cannot  be  doubted.  When  Moses,  who  had  been 
divinely  appointed  the  god  of  Pharao,  and  Aaron 
his  prophet,  turned  the  rod  into  the  serpent,  "Pha 
rao  called  the  wise  men  and  the  magicians;  and 
they  also  by  Egyptian  enchantments  and  certain 
secrets  did  in  like  manner.  And  they  every  one 
cast  down  their  rods  and  they  became  serpents."* 
Even  as  late  as  St  Paul,  Simon  for  a  long  time  had 
"bewitched  the  Samaritans  with  his  sorceries."  In 
vain  these  arts  were  proscribed  by  the  Roman  laws 
as  proceeding  from  the  powers  of  evil.  The  multi 
tudes  were  credulous  still,  not  only  to  those  that 
were  native,  but  to  the  practises  of  the  Thessalian 
witches,  the  magi,  the  sorcerers  of  Egypt  and  Phry- 
gia,  and  other  foreign  nations,  whose  manners  and 
opinions  they  were  brought  by  continued  conquests 
of  Roman  arms  to  learn.  Christianity  must  oppose 
itself  to  these  as  to  all  other  practises  of  heathen 
ism.  St.  John,  in  the  Apocalypse  (xxi.  8),  we  re 
member,  devoted  to  the  second  death,  in  the  pool 
burning  with  fire  and  brimstone,  sorcerers  along 
with  the  "fearful  and  unbelieving,  the  abominable, 
and  murderers,  and  fornicators,  and  idolaters,  and 
all  liars. "  Among  Christians,  henceforth,  arts  which 
even  heathen  emperors  had  condemned  must  seem 

*Exochas  vii.  n,  12. 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  83 

yet  more  black  and  diabolical,  and  be  forbidden  by 
yet  more  certain  and  severe  restrictions.  Natural, 
therefore,  were  the  jealousies  of  the  Church  always 
of  whatever  might  obstruct  the  universal  prevalence 
of  the  Christian  faith.  We  are  now  considering 
nearly  the  most  unenlightened  period  of  the  Middle 
Age,  a  period  poor  in  general  culture  yet  rich  in 
religious  tervor.  Ever  struggling,  the  Church  was 
struggling  yet  against  the  powers  of  darkness,  and 
was  timorous  against  everything  that  bore  even  the 
appearance  of  an  enemy.  The  Mendicant  orders, 
newly  established,  had  lost  none  or  little  of  the  en 
ergetic  devoutness  of  their  founders.  Called  into 
being  in  great  emergencies,  they  were  among  the 
chiefest  supports  to  the  Papacy,  whose  fortunes 
then  were  those  of  the  whole  Church.  Besides,  hu 
man  infirmities  belong  to  men  in  all  conditions, 
the  pious  and  the  wicked.  A  very  great  man  al 
ways  lives  in  advance  of  his  times,  and  is  never 
rightly  appreciated  because  never  fully  understood 
by  his  contemporaries,  even  those  with  whom  he 
lives  upon  terms  of  most  intimate  relationship.  Es 
pecially  is  this  the  case  with  those  who,  though  less, 
are  yet  highly  gifted,  and  have  those  aspirations 
that  are  found  most  often  and  most  eager  among 
the  greatest  of  earth.  There  is  no  place  so  holy, 
said  Thomas  a  Kempis,  wherein  temptations  do 
not  enter,  and  the  most  insidious  are  they  which 


84  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

assail  those  otherwise  most  unassailable  by  evil  in 
fluences.  Leaders  of  multitudes  next  below  him 
who  towers  far  above  them  are  few  who,  in  one 
form  or  another,  do  not  undertake  to  persuade  their 
followers  to  drag  him  down  from  his  threatening 
height,  sometimes  in  order  to  cast  him  to  death. 
Socrates  nearly  foresaw  the  Messias.  At  least  he 
demonstrated  the  inevitable  necessity  of  his  being. 
In  his  opinion  God,  the  great  Unknown,  could 
never  become  known  to  the  world  with  satisfaction 
unless  he  would  clothe  Himself  in  human  form,  and, 
descending  from  heaven,  exhibit  Himself  in  such 
form  before  the  world,  so  prone  not  only  to  evil 
deeds  but  evil  opinions.  And  so,  at  the  instigation 
of  those  who  stood  nearest  to  him  in  men's  estima 
tion,  his  people,  to  whose  weal  his  whole  being  had 
been  devoted,  seized  upon  and  slew  him  even  in  the 
midst  of  those  teachings  which,  of  all  that  have 
ever  fallen  from  human  tongues  not  divinely  in 
spired,  were  nearest  to  the  oracles  of  God. 

Roger  Bacon  was  too  far  in  advance  of  his  time 
not  to  foresee  that  his  generation  would  not  be  led 
by  him,  and  that  for  his  persistent  refusal  to  stay 
behind  he  must  suffer  the  penalties  common  to 
extraordinary  greatness.  It  may  have  been  impru 
dent,  but  it  was  of  a  part  of  the  integrity  and  bold 
ness  with  which  he  was  in  the  pursuit  of  science  not 
to  attempt  to  conceal  the  results  of  any  of  his  work. 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE,  ^ 

His  brother  Franciscans,  timorous  like  the  rest  of 
the  Christian  world  respecting  the  horrors  of  de- 
monology,  looked  upon  him  with  suspicion  and  ap 
prehension  which  grew  with  the  ever-increasing 
wonderful  discoveries,  all  of  which  were  proclaimed 
with  the  joyous  readiness  with  which  an  ardent 
searcher  for  truth  loves  to  make  it  known  when  he 
has  found  it.  In  time  these  brothers  were  driven 
to  fear  what  outsiders  had  already  charged  upon 
this  monk,  so  strangely  wise,  the  exhibitor  of  such 
startling  things — that,  like  the  sorcerers,  he  was 
possessed  of  demoniacal  spirits,  and,  if  not  arrested, 
he  would  inflict  great  harm  upon  the  Church  in  gen 
eral  and  the  order  of  Franciscans  in  particular;  and 
so  he  was  ordered  to  communicate  knowledge  of 
his  investigations  to  no  one,  under  pain  of  impris 
onment  and  being  fed  upon  bread  and  water  only. 
The  order  was  obeyed,  most  of  the  discoveries  he 
had  made  were  locked  in  the  recesses  of  his  own 
brain  and  partly  in  those  manuscripts  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  of  Opus  Majus.  Extreme  penalty 
for  his  wisdom  was  postponed  for  a  season  by  the 
promptness  of  his  obedience,  and  in  the  course  of 
time  occured  events  which  led  to  the  hope  that  the 
ban  of  silence  would  be  removed  and  the  student  be 
permitted  to  pursue  the  career  which,  if  unmolested, 
would  have  added  untold  blessings  to  mankind. 
Guy  Foulquois,  a  native  of  St.  Gilles,  France,  came 


86  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

late  to  the  priesthood.  He  had  been  a  soldier,  a 
distinguished  lawyer,  and  a  high  official  at  the 
court  of  Louis  IX.  When  his  wife  died,  leaving 
him  with  two  daughters,  he  left  the  world  for  the 
church.  He  had  the  good  fortune  to  enjoy  the  in 
timate  society  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  St.  Bon- 
aventure.  His  mind,  from  these  associations  and 
his  previous  studies,  had  risen  to  a  condition 
wherein  it  could  note  with  pleasure  the  progress  of 
general  enlightenment.  Pope  Urban  IV.  appointed 
him  legate  to  England,  in  order  to  aid  in  bringing 
about  a  reconciliation  between  King  Henry  III. 
and  Simon  de  Montfort.  Pleased  with  the  service 
rendered  by  him,  upon  his  return  he  created  him  Car 
dinal  Bishop  of  Sabina.  While  sojourning  in  England 
he  did,  rather  he  tried  to  do,  a  work  far  more  impor 
tant  than  that  of  conciliating  to  the  king's  interest 
that  turbulent  noble  whose  factious  endeavors  were 
to  be  ended  only  by  the  defeat  at  Evesham.  He 
had  heard  of  some  of  the  discoveries  of  the  Francis 
can  monk  at  Oxford,  and  he  became  exceedingly 
anxious  to  be  made  acquainted  with  them.  He  suc 
ceeded  to  a  limited  extent  through  the  connivance 
of  his  agent,  Remond  de  Laon,  who  managed  to 
evade  the  surveillance  under  which  the  monk  was 
held  by  his  brethren.  Delighted  with  what  he  had 
obtained,  for  some  years  he  could  only  regret  that 
such  a  man  should  be  the  victim  of  a  prejudice  so 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  87 

hostile  to  the  interests  of  mankind.  But  in  the 
year  1265,  on  the  death  of  Urban  he  was  elected  to 
succeed  him.  In  vain  he  remonstrated  with  the 
cardinals,  as  a  truly  pious  ecclesiastic  must  do 
when  exalted  to  such  eminence.  He  could  not 
prevail,  and  on  the  22d  day  of  February  of  that  year 
assumed  the  tiara  with  the  title  of  Clement  IV. 

It  is  most  grateful  to  consider  the  career  of  this 
eminent  pope.  Pious  as  enlightened,  humble  as 
great,  he  dwelt  during  all  of  his  pontificate  in  the 
town  of  Viterbo,  never  for  one  time  entering  the 
great  Eternal  City,  the  capital  of  Christendom. 
The  members  of  his  family,  though  of  noble  extrac 
tion,  he  kept  far  from  him,  notifying  them,  early 
after  his  ascension,  that  they  were  not  to  expect 
any  special  favors  at  his  hands.  Following  his  ex 
ample,  his  two  daughters  gave  themselves  to  the 
church,  becoming  nuns  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Saviour's 
at  Nismes.  Often  had  he  reflected  upon  what  he 
had  learned  of  the  work  of  the  humble  Franciscan, 
and  pitied  his  contracted  life  and  the  ignorant 
fears  that  had  constrained  it  within  its  narrow  limits. 
Now,  when  he  had  risen  to_be  head  of  the  church, 
he  bethought  him  to  do  what  was  possible  in  the 
interests  as  well  of  science  as  of  charity.  Then  he 
wrote  that  letter,  which  is  still  extant,  in  which  he 
adjured  him,  by  the  respect  which  he  was  bound 
to  pay  to  the  Apostolic  See,  to  send  to  him  in  pri- 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

vate  an  account  of  the  investigations  which  he  had 
made  in  behalf  of  science  and  their  results.  It 
seems  now  curious  that  the  head  of  the  church 
should  use  such  precautionary  means  for  the  attain 
ment  of  ends  so  desirable  and  so  benign.  But  the 
Franciscan  Order  were  devoted  to  pious  works  and 
to  the  See  of  Rome.  If  he  must  do  contrary  to 
what  they  had  commanded  within  their  own  socie 
ty,  he  will  endeavor  to  do  so  without  the  notoriety 
that  would  inflict  pain  upon  followers  so  devoted 
and  otherwise  so  helpful  to  the  cause  of  Christianity. 
Yet  in  the  letter  was  an  allusion  to  the  restraints 
under  which  these  writings  had  been  put,  and  his 
orders  were,  that,  however  binding  these  were,  the 
manuscripts  must  be  sent  notwithstanding.  It  was 
thus  that  the  world  became  acquainted  with  that 
Opus  Majus,  without  doubt  the  most  important 
work  in  the  service  of  the  physical  needs  of  man 
kind  that  had  ever  yet  been  done. 

We  can  only  speculate  what  might  have  been 
done  by  Clement,  both  for  science  and  its  suffering, 
ablest,  and  most  devoted  votary,  but  for  his  ad 
vanced  age  and  engrossment  not  only  with  the  gen 
eral  affairs  of  the  church,  but  with  the  settlement  of 
the  Two  Sicilies  upon  the  house  of  Anjou.  In  less 
than  four  years  he  died,  and  Bacon  was  thus  left 
friendless: 

Among  the  Franciscans  was  one  Tineus,  of  Ales- 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  89 

siano,  in  the  diocese  of  Ascoli,  Italy.  Of  an  ob 
scure  family,  he  had  distinguished  himself  by  his 
devotion  to  the  party  who  were  desirous  of  retur 
ning  to  the  stricter  discipline  of  their  founder,  and 
who,  in  distinction  to  the  Recollets  were  called 
Brothers  of  the  Observance,  sometimes  Minors  Ob- 
servantines.  At  the  death  of  St.  Bonaventure  he 
became  general  of  the  order.  The  death  of  Clem 
ent  revived  the  charges  of  sorcery  against  Ba 
con,  and  the  hostility  became  so  acrimonious  that 
he  was  summoned  to  appear  before  a  tribunal 
met  at  Paris  for  his  trial.  He  was  found  guilty 
and  the  judgment  pronounced  by  D' Ascoli  was  per 
petual  imprisonment.  He  was  then  not  far  from 
being  seventy  years  old. 

So  harsh  a  judgment  it  is  sad  to  think  of  at  any 
period.  Yet  one  cannot  forget  the  hard  trials  of 
the  Church  with  evils  so  manifold  that  it  was  im 
possible  in  every  instance  to  separate  the  innocent 
from  the  guilty.  In  vain  had  the  laws  of  the  em 
pire  endeavored  to  suppress  what  were  considered 
the  worst  evils  that  could  befall  mankind.  The  in 
fusion  of  barbaric  blood  from  the  northern  regions 
of  Europe  had  deepened  the  belief  in  diabolic 
influences.  We  have  seen  what  was  the  judgment 
of  St.  John  upon  sorcerers,  and  we  remember  that 
St.  Paul  denounced  Elymas  as  a  "child  of  the  devil." 
What  wonder,  then,  that  the  Franciscans,  an  order 


9°  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

in  which  a  large  party  had  already  risen  who  were 
departing  from  the  stern  rule  of  the  glorious  Saint 
of  Assissium,  should  feel  it  their  solemn  duty  to  shut 
for  ever  the  mouth  of  one  among  them  whose  exper 
iments,  with  results  hitherto  unknown,  were  astound 
ing  even  more  than  the  most  audacious  of  all  the 
"black  art's"  achievements?  We  wish  we  could 
know  some  of  the  incidents  of  this  trial.  What 
may  have  been  the  bearing  of  the  accused,  whom 
we  know  to  have  been  as  brave  as  he  was  gifted,  as 
true  to  the  cause  of  religion  as  that  of  science?  He 
certainly  did  not  recant,  because  he  would  not;  did 
he  defy?  What  was  said  in  his  defence,  even  with 
caution  and  timidity,  by  the  few  who  hoped  he 
might  be  less  wicked  than  he  seemed,  or  who  loved 
him  too  well  not  to  murmur  some  regrets  that  his 
face  was  to  be  withdrawn  wholly  from  their  sight, 
and  its  aged  wearer  to  languish  the  poor  remains  of 
life  in  a  dungeon?  What  affectionate  tears  were 
shed  at  the  parting  and  afterwards  in  remembering 
what  he  was  elsewhere  than  among  those  horrid 
implements  of  his  satanic  practises?  Answers  to 
these  questions  we  can  imagine  only,  and  then  re 
flect  that  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  He 
came  into  the  world  before  his  time,  and  must  suffer 
the  penalties  always  inflicted  upon  premature  ad 
vents.  The  world  could  not  take  the  mighty  strides 
needed  to  follow  in  his  lead.  This  great  truth  was 


A    MARTYR   TO    SCIENCK.  9! 

felt  never  so  sadly  as  by  our  Lord  when  to  his  di 
sciples  he  spoke  these  parting  words: 
"Adhuc  mult  a  habeo  vobis  die  ere,  sed  non  potestis 
portare  modo."  *  He  had  been  charged  with  cas 
ting  out  devils  through  Beelzebub.  Even  one  of 
the  Twelve,  after  the  Resurrection,  before  believing, 
must  lay  his  hand  upon  the  prints  of  His  wounds. 
No ;  non  possunt  modo.  They  could  not  bear  until 
another  should  come  and  by  degrees  lead  them  up 
the  dazzling  heights.  So  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Cor 
inthians:  "Lac  vobis  potum  dedi,  non  escam:  non- 
dum  enim  poteratis,  sed  nee  nunc  quidem  potestis: 
adhuc  enim  carnales  estis, "  t 

Tineus  of  Ascoli  was  neither  a  bad  man  nor  a 
cruel.  The  privations  of  his  imprisoned  brother 
probably  were  not  harder  than  those  which  he  vol 
untarily  inflicted  upon  himself  as  the  leader  of  one 
of  the  strictest  of  monastic  orders,  chosen  from  the 
straitest  of  its  parties.  A  Franciscan  must  not 
only  be,  but  to  his  brethren,  the  Church,  and  the 
world  he  must  appear,  guiltless  of  whatever  dero 
gates  from  the  solemnity  of  his  vows.  Seven  years 
after  these  events  this  leader,  on  the  death  of  Hono- 
rius  IV.,  was  raised  to  the  papal  throne,  taking  the 
name  of  Nicholas  IV.  This  honor  was  due  mainly 
to  his  reputation  for  sanctity  and  acquaintance  with 
the  wants  of  the  Church,  and  partly  to  the  cour- 

*St.  John  xvi.  12.  f  i  Cor.  iii.  2. 


9 2  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

age  with  which  he  had  withstood  the  pestilence  at 
Sabina  during  the  sitting  of  the  conclave  after  the 
death  of  his  predecessor.  Yet  he  besought  the 
cardinals  to  recall  their  votes,  and  on  his  dying 
bed  declared,  with  a  simple  sincerity  that  no  one 
doubted,  "We  accepted  the  purple  from  fear  of  of 
fending  our  order."  Nor  was  he  hostile  to  learning. 
On  the  contrary — and  it  seems  like  a  grim  mockery 
— he  not  only  granted  large  privileges  to  the  Uni 
versity  of  Lisbon,  founded  by  King  Denis,  but  he 
founded  himself  that  at  Montpellier.  Yet  during 
his  pontificate  he  seems  never  to  have  given  a 
thought  to  the  aged  brother  who  still  was  lingering 
in  the  prison  to  which  he  had  consigned  him  ten 
years  before,  and  it  was  not  until  after  his  death 
that  the  sufferer  was  released  and  allowed  to  return 
to  his  native  country.  While  he  was  languishing, 
shut  out  from  the  world,  some  ot  the  irrefragable 
truths  which  he  had  propounded,  in  such  wise  as 
could  not  fail  to  become  known,  made  here  and 
there  impressions  upon  minds  more  cultured  and 
liberal  than  the  rest  which  induced  interventions  in 
his  behalf.  Besides  silence,  the  coming  on  of  old 
age,  long  absence,  subsidence  of  jealousies  among 
his  own  brethren,  another  factor  in  the  persecutions 
by  which  he  had  been  beset,  prevailed  at  last.  An 
exile  of  fourscore  granted  leave  to  return  to  his 
home  !  What  was  left  for  him  was  to  die.  Poignant 


A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE.  93 

in  the  highest  degree,  doubtless,  is  the  suffering  of  a 
great  soul  which  suffers  not  only  unjustly  but  while 
laboring  for  the  weal  of  its  persecutors,  who  inflict 
because  they  cannot  rise  to  see  its  good,  grand 
purposes.  Resentment  is  kept  in  abeyance  because 
it  knows  that  such  inflictions  have  not  been  dictat 
ed  by  cruelty  but  ignorance,  which  is  as  implaca 
ble.  Sadder  words  never  came  from  the  mouth  of 
a  dying  man  than  those  spoken  by  the  returned 
exile  who,  after  so  many  years  of  anguish,  was 
allowed  to  die  in  his  native  home:"y>  me  repens  de 
m'etre  donne  tant  de  peine  dans  rinteret  de  la 
science."  The  illustrious  namesake  who  appropri 
ated  so  many  of  his  ideas  and  almost  all  of  his 
praise,  he  also  made  touching  appeals  to  foreign 
nations  and  future  ages  to  ignore  the  things  of 
which  never  a  temptation  came  to  the  humble 
monk  to  be  guilty.  The  one  anguished  in  the  rec 
ollection  of  infirmities  which  it  is  almost  incredible 
that  such  a  man  would  not  have  been  able  to  cure ; 
the  other,  having  none  of  such  sort  to  remember, 
must  repent  only  of  having  been  made  to  suffer  for 
the  time  which,  as  it  seemed  to  him  in  his  dying 
hour,  had  been  wasted  in  the  interest  of  science. 
So  Marcus  Brutus,  after  his  desertion  by  the  people 
and  after  the  defeat  of  Philippi,  turned  his  eye  re 
gretfully  back  upon  the  literary  and  philosophic 
pursuits  of  his  youth  and  young  manhood,  ar.d 


94  A    MARTYR    TO    SCIENCE. 

wished  he  had  never  left  them  for  the  vain  purpose 
of  saving  a  republic  that  was  already  in  ruins.  Fi 
nally,  we  are  reminded  in  this  connection  of  the 
last  words  of  Gregory  VII.  at  Salerno:  "We  have 
loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity,  and  for  ihis  we 
die  in  exile." 


SOME  HEROES  OF  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

A  MONG  those  who  have  written  ot  mankind,  Dick- 
**  ens  knew  best  the  world  around  him,  especially 
in  that  class  whom,  being  a  large  majority,  it  is  most 
important  to  understand.  Sprung  from  almost  the 
lowest  stratum,  having  suffered  many  of  the  pains 
which  befall  their  varied  conditions,  even  when  a 
little  child  his  eyes  were  ever  looking  around  him, 
and,  though  unconsciously  then,  studying  and 
learning  them  well,  destined  never  to  lose  the  in 
terest  which  such  knowledge  inspired,  but  to  devote 
a  hard  working  life  to  imparting  it  to  others,  among 
other  purposes,  in  order  to  impart  to  them  a  com 
passion  which  he  never  ceased  to  feel.  Never  a 
demagogue,  nor  a  vulgarian,  nor  a  snob,  when  rich, 
illustrious,  courted  by  the  great,  he  busied  himself 
as  when  poor,  unknown  and  friendless,  and  died  in 
the  midst  of  his  benign  work.  The  recollection  of 
some  accidents  of  his  childhood  was  always  painful, 
not  from  shame  at  the  contrast  with  established 
prosperity,  yet  not  without  some,  a  shade  of  bit 
terness  in  the  reflection  that  a  child  so  sensitive  to 
hurt  should  have  been  subjected,  sometimes  unnec- 

95 


g  SOMK    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

essarily,  to  such  privations.  Before  reading  the 
Biography  of  Forster  we  knew  that  to  him  who  had 
written  the  histories  of  Tiny  Tim  and  Jo  of  Tom- All- 
Alone 's  early  sorrows  had  come  that  could  not  be 
forgotten. 

Such  things  as  these,  as  was  the  case  with  Aken- 
side  and  Gifford,  sometimes  make  either  a  satirist 
or  a  despiser  of  those  in  one's  same  lot.  In  minds 
except  the  greatest  it  is  not  unnatural  for  both 
shame  and  resentment  to  rise  from  such  humilia 
ting  recollections.  Even  among  the  greatest,  tears 
must  come  in  the  eyes  and  a  shadow  be  upon  the 
heart;  but  these  qualify  them  better  for  the  histories 
which  they  are  to  indite.  They  are  only  the 
greatest  also  who  can  become  just  historians  of  the 
poor  and  humble.  Of  these  Dickens  was  never  an 
undiscriminating  champion.  As  the  best  of  his 
creations  were  taken  from  their  midst,  so  were  his 
worst.  The  latter,  indeed,  had  become  known 
right  well  in  the  jails  and  ships  of  transport  to  penal 
colonies.  He  would  make  known  the  former  as 
well — important  information  in  a  community  such 
as  London  city,  where,  not  as  in  country  life,  the 
social  positions  of  the  high  and  the  low  are  so  far 
apart  that,  passing  and  repassing  each  other  every 
day,  not  only  is  there  little  accord  of  sentiments 
and  feelings,  but  unhappily  often  an  utter  ignorance 
on  the  part  of  the  upper  of  the  characters  of  the 


x  *  t, 


SOMK    HKROES    OF    CHAKI.KS     DICKENS.  C)J 

lower,  their  conditions,  aims,  and  possibilities.  The 
poor  are  known  to  be  poor  indeed,  and  many  the 
charities  that  are  extended.  Yet  money-charities 
are  far  from  being  the  highest.  Indeed,  money- 
charities,  when  bestowed  not  from  a  sense  of  their 
necessity  to  the  receiver,  or  from  a  sort  of  pleasant 
consciousness  in  the  giver  of  a  condescension  from 
peculiar  loftiness  of  mind,  are  sometimes  bestowed 
for  the  purpose  of  buying  one's  self  off  from  those 
more  benignant,  seeking  acquaintance  with  the  afflic 
ted  and  oppressed,  and  visiting  them  with  intent  to 
comfort  and  relieve.  Dickens  knew  these  classes,* 
their  squalid  poverty,  their  sickliness,  their  hopes 
and  despairs,  their  desires  to  pull  the  rich  out  of 
their  great  houses  and  splendid  equipages,  and  soil 

*Forster  in  his  biography  says:  "  That  he  took  from  the  very  be 
ginning  of  this  Bayham-Street  life  his  first  impression  of  that 
struggling  poverty  which  is  nowhere  more  vividly  shown  than  in 
the  commoner  streets  of  the  ordinary  L,ondon  suburb,  and  which 
enriched  his  earliest  writings  with  a  freshness  of  original  humor 
and  quite  unstudied  pathos  that  gave  them  much  of  their  sudden 
popularity,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt.  '  I  certainly  understood  it,'  he 
has  often  said  to  me,  '  quite  as  well  then  as  I  do  now.'  But  he  was 
not  conscious  yet  that  he  did  so  understand  it,  or  of  the  influence  it 
was  exerting  on  his  life  even  then.  It  seems  almost  too  much  to 
assert  of  a  child,  say  at  nine  or  ten  years  old,  that  his  observation  of 
everything  was  as  close  and  good,  or  that  he  had  as  much  intuitive 
understanding  of  the  character  and  weakness  of  grown-up  people 
around  him,  as  when  the  same  keen  and  wonderful  faculty  had  made 
him  famous  among  men.  But  my  experience  of  him  led  me  to  put 
implicit  faith  in  the  assertion  he  unvaryingly  himself  made,  that  he 
had  never  seen  any  cause  to  correct  or  change  what  in  his  boyhood 
was  his  own  secret  impression  of  any  boy  whom  he  had  had,  as  a 
grown  man,  the  opportunity  of  testing  in  later  years.  " 


98  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

their  fair  garments  in  the  dirt  on  which  their  own 
beds  were  laid,  their  children  born,  and  their  poor 
meals  spread.  But  he  knew  as  well  their  integrity, 
their  fear  of  God,  their  unvaunting  courage,  their 
love  of  wives,  parents,  children,  brothers,  sisters, 
friends,  their  merry-hearted  drolleries,  their  absurd 
sentimentalities.  He  knew  all  their  grief  and 
their  frolic,  sympathized  where  sympathy  could  be 
afforded,  pitied  where  it  could  not,  and  laughed 
when  he  could  laugh  without  the  petulance  that  em 
bitters  instead  of  sweetening  mirth.  It  is  a  rare 
gift  when  one  who  portrays  the  earnest  can  do  as 
well  with  the  sportive.  Scott  had  done  so,  and,  to 
a  less  degree,  Miss  Edgeworth  also;  both  late, 
because  readers  of  books  had  not  yet  come  to  be 
profoundly  interested  in  the  multitudes.  It  was 
reserved  for  Dickens  to  bring  in  the  satyr  as  he  is 
in  his  native  wilds.  I  say  satyr,  for  in  such  con 
dition,  between  man  and  beast,  the  multitudes 
seemed  long  to  have  been  regarded.  By  the  hand 
of  Dickens  these  were  shown  to  be  human  beings 
with  eyes,  ears,  wants,  aspirations  like  those  of  the 
gifted  and  the  fortunate. 

There  is  somewhat  surprising  in  the  rashness 
with  which,  when  first  feeling  his  mission,  he  went 
to  its  work.  Yet  rashness  belongs  to  the  young, 
and,  when  it  succeeds,  its  successes  are  splendid. 
Witness  the  Cockney  in  Pickwick;  in  Barnaby 


SOME    HEROES    OK    CHART.KS    DICKENS.  99 

Rudge  the  idiot  and  the  raven;  the  pauper  in  Oli 
ver  Twist  \  the  child  of  shame  under  a  coward 
schoolmaster's  rod  in  Nicholas  Nickleby ;  in  Curi 
osity  Shop  a  motherless  child  with  no  friend  but 
God;  in  Bleak  House  another,  most  unhappy  for 
not  being  fatherless  also,  and  yet  another,  even 
nameless,  persecuted  for  the  sake  of  a  secret  acci 
dentally  lodged  in  his,  simple  breast  and  dying  in 
neglect,  want,  and  exile;  in  Copper  field  a.  perenni 
al  prisoner  in  the  Marshalsea. 

What  reflections  were  to  be  had,  what  morals 
deduced,  from  these  histories  of  the  lowly?  Better 
ment  of  the  conditions  of  poor-houses  and  mean 
boarding-schools,  awakening  to  the  miseries  en 
tailed  by  the  endless  delays,  hinderings,  and  sell 
ings  of  Chancery  decrees,  and  fixing  regard  upon 
other  evils  which  had  shocked  him  when  a  child,  and 
now  nigh  overwhelmed  him  with  horror  to  recall. 
The  eminent  success  of  his  efforts  for  these  super 
ior  purposes  was  due,  perhaps,  mainly  to  the  humor 
which  he  possessed  in  greater  abundance  than  any 
novelist  of  any  time.  Fortunate  for  his  own  being, 
fortunate  for  us,  that  his  spirit  was  so  healthy. 
Bitterness  could  never  rise  in  the  heart  of  one  who 
could  laugh  as  heartily  as  he  could  weep.  Not  less 
did  he  pity  the  privations  of  the  lowly  because  he 
could  be  amused  by  their  harmless  absurdities. 
What  these  were  he  knew  not  only  from  observa- 


100  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

tion  bat  experience.  His  "home,"  as  he  styled  it 
had  once  been  the  Marshalsea,  its  inmates  his  pa 
rents,  brothers,  sisters,  special  friends  and  acquain 
tance.  Suffering,  unmixed,  constant,  dwelt  not  here 
more  than  pleasure  unalloyed  among  the  prosper 
ous.  The  little  joys  of  the  humble  how  he  loved 
to  exaggerate,  in  order  to  show  how  easy  it  was  to 
multiply  and  enhance  them,  and  thus  concilliate 
and  persuade  to  this  humane  purpose!  For  char 
ity  comes  from  the  laughers  oft-times  more  abound 
ing  than  from  the  weepers.  The  singing  girl,  who 
in  tattered  garments  stands  upon  the  cold  pave 
ment  and  carols  a  merry  roundelay,  will  often  delay 
some  that  hasten  past  her  who  lifts  only  the  song 
of  wailing  that  is  known  to  belong  to  all  her  kind. 
Often  it  is  that  the  mirthful  man,  more  readily  than 
the  serious,  will  draw  from  his  pockets  and  bestow 
to  what  has  made  him  laugh  yet  another  time. 

It  is  not  contended  herein  that  the  mind  of  Dick 
ens  was  always  bent  mainly  to  the  production  of 
beneficent  results;  though  we  do  believe  that  these 
were  never  wholly  absent  from  it.  He  was  intent 
upon  describing  states  of  existence  in  all  their 
phases  of  lights  as  well  as  shadows.  That  the 
sportive  in  him  predominated  over  the  serious  was 
a  special  felicity.  Whoever  has  read  Forster's 
Biography  has  been  amused  as  heartily  by  the  real 
as  ever  he  was  by  the  unreal.  Take  the  following : 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARGES   1&POHEN3.  TCfa 

"1  was  such  a  little  fellow,  with  my  poor  white  hat,  little  jacket, 
and  corduroy  trousers,  that  frequently,  when  I  went  into  the  bar  of  a 
strange  public-house  for  a  glass  of  porter  or  ale  to  wash  down  the 
saveloy  and  the  loaf  1  had  eaten  in  the  street,  they  did  not  like  to 
give  it  me.  I  remember,  one  evening  (I  had  been  somewhere  for  my 
father,  and  was  going  back  to  the  borough  over  Westminster 
Bridge),  that  I  went  into  a  public-house  on  Parliament  Street — which 
is  still  there,  though  altered — at  the  corner  of  the  short  street  lead 
ing  into  the  Cannon  Row,  and  said  to  the  landlord  behind  the  bar, 
What  is  your  very  best — the  very  best — ale  a  glass?1  For  the  occa 
sion  was  a  festive  one  for  some  reason;  I  forget  why.  It  may  have 
been  my  birthday  or  somebody  else's.  'Twopence,'  says  he.  'Then,' 
says  I,  'just  draw  me  a  glass  of  that,  if  you  please,  with  a  good  head 
to  it.'  The  landlord  looked  at  me  in  return,  over  the  bar,  from  head 
to  foot,  with  a  strange  smile  on  his  face,  and,  instead  of  drawing  the 
beer,  looked  around  the  screen  and  said  something  to  his  wife,  who 
came  out  from  behind  it  with  her  work  in  her  hand,  and  joined  him 
in  surveying  me.  Here  we  stand,  all  three,  before  me  now  in  my 
study  in  Devonshire  Terrace — the  landlord,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  lean 
ing  against  the  bar  window-frame;  his  wife  looking  over  the  little 
half-door;  and  I,  in  some  confusion,  looking  up  at  them  from  outside 
the  partition.  They  asked  me  a  good  many  questions,  as  what  my 
name  was,  how  old  I  was,  where  I  lived,  how  I  was  employed,  etc., 
etc.  To  all  of  which,  that  I  might  commit  nobody,  I  invented  ap 
propriate  answers.  They  served  me  with  the  ale,  though  I  suspect  it 
was  not  the  strongest  on  the  premises;  and  the  landlord's  wife,  open 
ing  the  little  half-door  and  bending  down,  gave  me  a  kiss  that  was 
half-admiring  and  half-compassionate,  but  all  womanly  and  good, 
I  am  sure." 

This  occurred  when  he  was  about  nine  years  of  age, 
living  on  seven  shillings  a  week,  "insufficiently  fed." 
"I  know,"  he  says,  "that  but  for  the  mercy  of  God  I 
might  easily  have  been,  for  any  care  that  was  taken 
of  me,  a  little  robber  or  a  little  vagabond." 

The  man  who  could  thus  write  about  his  own  child, 
hood's  existence  showed  that  the  droll  was  remem 
bered  and  dwelt  upon  as  often  as  the  sad.  It  was 


7.'02  £<JMK    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

a  pleasure-giving  smile  with  which  he  contemplated 
the  urchin  balancing  his  economic  resources  with 
the  importance  of  producing  effect  upon  the  trading 
world. 

The  hero  of  many  of   the  children  in  the  novels 
of  Dickens  was  himself.*     At  one   time  he  was  Jo, 

*"  My  father  had  left  a  small  collection  of  books  in  a  little  room 
up-stairs  to  which  I  had  access  (for  it  adjoined  my  own),  and  which 
nobody  in  our  house  ever  troubled.  From  that  blessed  little  room 
Roderick  Random,  Peregrine  Pickle,  Humphrey  Clinker,  Tom  Jones, 
The  Vicar  of  Wakeneld,  Don  Quixote,  Gil  Bias,  and  Robinson  Cru 
soe  came  out,  a  glorious  host,  to  keep  me  company.  They  kept  alive 
my  fancy  and  my  hope  of  something'  bevond  that  place  and  time 
— they  and  the  Arabian  Nights  and  the  Tales  of  the  Genii — and  did 
me  no  harm;  for  whatever  harm  was  in  some  of  them  was  not  there 
for  me:  I  knew  nothing  of  it.  It  is  astonishing  to  me  now  how  I 
found  time,  in  the  midst  of  my  porings  and  blunderings  over  heavier 
themes,  to  read  those  books  as  I  did.  It  is  curious  to  me  how  I 
could  ever  have  consoled  myself  under  my  small  troubles  (which 
were  great  troubles  to  me)  by  impersonating  mv  favorite  characters 

in  them 1  have  been  Torn  Jones  (a  child's  Tom  Jones,  a  harmless 

creature;  for  a  week  together.  I  have  sustained  my  own  idea  of 
Roderick  Random  for  a  month  at  a  stretch,  I  verily  believe.  I  had  a 
greedy  relish  for  a  few  volumes  of  voyages  and  travels — I  forget 
what  now — that  were  on  those  shelves;  and  for  days  and  days  I  can 
remember  to  have  gone  about  my  region  of  our  house,  armed  with 
the  centre-piece  out  of  an  old  set  of  boot-trees,  the  perfect  realiza 
tion  of  Captain  Somebody,  of  the  Royal  Navy,  in  danger  of  being 

beset  by   savages  and  resolved  to  sell  his  life  at  a  great  price 

When  I  think  of  it  the  picture  always  rises  in  my  mind,  of  a  sum 
mer  evening,  the  boys  at  play  in  the  churchyard  and  I  sitting  on  my 
bed  reading  as  if  for  life.  Every  barn  in  the  neighborhood,  every 
stone  in  the  church,  and  every  foot  of  the  churchyard  had  some  as 
sociation  of  its  own,  in  my  mind,  connected  with  these  books,  and 
stood  for  some  locality  made  famous  in  them.  I  have  seen  Tom 
Pipes  go  climbing  up  the  church  steeple;  I  have  watched  Strap,  with 
the  knapsack  on  his  back,  stopping  to  rest  himself  on  the  wicket 
gat  &nd  I  know  that  Commodore  Trunnion  held  that  club  with  Mrt 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.          103 

moving,  ever  moving  before  the  pursuant  detective; 
at  another  he  was  Paul  Dombey  looking  up  with 
awe  to  Mrs.  Pipchin,  and  when  alone  wondering 
what  may  be  the  voices  of  the  sad  sea-waves;  yet 
at  another  Kit  honorably  bent  upon  the  fulfilment 
of  his  promise  to  lead  his  younger  brother  to  the 
knowledge  of  "what  oysters  is."  Childhood,  in 
its  privations,  in  its  innocence,  in  its  ambitions,  in 
its  dreams,  no  man  was  ever  so  acquainted  withal, 
and  none  ever  so  delighted  to  portray  it.  In  the 
case  of  Little  Nell  there  was  danger,  for  a  space, 
that  the  judgment  of  the  artist  would  be  swayed  by 
the  feeling  of  the  man  and  fall  short  of  consumma 
tion  of  a  creation  so  felicitously  conceived.  Con 
vinced  by  the  reasons  of  a  friend,  who  argued  that 
the  survival  of  sufferings  of  the  kind  undergone 
would  not  well  comport  with  the  ends  of  fiction,  he 
yielded;  and  when  the  picture  was  finished  Jeffrey 
said  there  had  been  nothing  to  compare  with  it 
since  Cordelia.  It  is  among  these  children  that 
we  must  look  for  the  pathos  needed  as  well  by  a 
novel  as  a  tragedy.  The  story  of  Jo  of  Tom-All- 
Alone's,  more  brief,  is  scarcely  less  touching  than 
that  of  Little  Nell.  He  whose  home  had  been  in 
the  Marshalsea  had  known  Jo  long  before  his  story 

Pickle  in  the  parlor  of  our  little  village  ale-house."  Then  the  bi 
ographer  adds:  "Every  word  of  this  personal  recollection  had  been 
written  down  as  fact  some  years  before  it  found  its  way  into  David 

Copperfield,  " 


104  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

was  to  be  told,  and  others  like  him.  Homeless, 
nameless,  friendless,  and  harmless,  except  that  a 
fatal  secret  in  a  great  family  had  been  lodged  by 
accident  in  his  simple  breast,  he  moves  and  moves 
till  the  powers  of  locomotion  are  exhausted,  when 
a  good  man  appears,  too  late  for  any  other  office 
than  to  teach  him  a  little  part  of  one  prayer  and 
fold  his  arms  upon  his  breast.  Hereat  comes  that 
outburst  of  indignant  remonstrance  against  a  Christ 
ian  community  wherein  such  things  are  allowed  to 
exist : 

"The  light  is  come  upon  the  dark,  benighted  way.     Dead! 

"Dead,  your  majesty.  Dead,  my  lords  and  gentlemen.  Dead, 
right  reverends  and  wrong  reverends  of  every  order.  Dead,  men 
and  women,  born  with  heavenly  compassion  in  your  hearts.  And 
dying  thus  around  us  every  day." 

With  self-made  men  who  try  not  to  forget  nor 
conceal  their  lowly  origin  there  is  often  the  dispo 
sition  to  talk  of  it  much,  and  exaggerate  the  hin 
drances  which  their  extraordinary  genius  and  spirit 
have  overcome.  With  others  the  proclivity  is  to 
praise  their  forebears  when  these  are  so  far  re 
moved  that  praise,  not  known  to  be  unmerited,  will 
not  be  ridiculous.  From  both  these  infirmities 
Dickens  seemed  to  have  been  uncommonly  free. 
He  neither  ignored  nor  sought  to  praise.  Forster 
tells  that  the  original  of  Micawber  was  the  novel 
ist's  own  father,  and  that  he  was  quite  vain  of  the 
office  of  an  amanuensis  to  his  son.  We  can  well 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.  105 

believe  this  of  one  whose  creations  so  frequently 
were  elaborated  from  characters  whom  he  had  well 
known.  There  are  few  things  in  literature  more 
humorous  than  the  intimacy  between  this  boy  of 
a  man  and  little  Davie.  The  taste  of  such  a  work 
it  is  not  to  the  point  here  to  discuss;  it  is  men 
tioned  as  another  proof  of  how  closely  the  author 
had  studied  human  life  among  its  humblest  ele 
ments,  and  with  what  consummate  skill  he  could 
invest  them  with  unflagging  interest. 

Fortunate  it  was,  we  repeat,  that  the  mind  of 
Dickens  was  not  embittered  by  the  poor  life  of  his 
childhood.  The  love  and  the  power  to  write  satire 
rise  in  either  an  unloving  or  a  disappointed  spirit. 
The  sadness  that  darkened  his  young  life  was  upon 
that  of  all  his  manhood,  often  drawing  from  his 
eyes  floods  of  tears;  but  it  was  of  a  kind  to  create 
compassion  for  distress  such  as  no  English  writer 
has  ever  evinced,  yet  a  compassion  tender,  loving, 
sometimes,  indeed,  changing  to  indignation,  not 
against  individuals,  nor  even  against  society  for 
acts  of  positive  injustice,  but  for  neglect  or  tardi 
ness  in  ascertaining  the  wants  of  the  destitute  mul 
titudes  and  providing  for  their  betterment.  Such 
a  man  can  look  upon  the  sportive  as  well  as  the 
earnest  side  of  life  among  these  multitudes.  The 
more  he  compassionated  the  one  the  more  he  could 
be  amused  by  the  other.  For,  indeed,  it  would  be 


106  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

a  hard  life  for  the  poor  if  they  had  no  seasons  of 
fun  and  frolic,  no  simulations  of  sentimental  ex 
periences,  no  harmless  exaggerations  of  their  own 
importance,  no  attempts  of  enacting  upon  their 
own  little  stages  representations  of  the  doings  of 
the  gifted  and  the  great.  Therefore  merry-hearted- 
ness  is  among  them  as  well  as  privations  and  sor 
rows.  The  poor  man's  holidays  have  a  relish  pe 
culiar  to  themselves,  and  their  gushing  abandon  in 
merry-makings  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing  things 
to  witness,  one  of  the  most  interesting  themes  for 
the  study  of  the  philosopher. 

In  the  portrayal  of  this  side  of  humble  life  doubt 
less  all  agree  that  Dickens  has  never  been  equalled. 
From  Pickwick  to  Drood  in  the  great  novels,  the 
novelettes,  the  Christmas  Stories,  the  brief  sketches, 
humorous  characters  come  on  and  on,  making  us 
wonder  if  the  list  is  never  to  have  an  end.  How 
many  thousands  have  they  made  actually  weep  with 
laughter ! 

The  prodigious  success  of  these  works  was  almost 
as  surprising  to  the  English  public  as  was  the  geni 
us  to  construct  them.  Let  us  reflect  somewhat 
upon  this  success.  How  was  it  that  the  man  who 
presented  characters  taken  from  the  lowly  exhibited 
them  so  that  we  looked  and  listened  with  an  inter 
est  beyond  that  ever  felt  in  contemplation  of  the 
great  lords  and  dames  in  fiction  heretofore?  How 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.  loy 

is  it  that  these  uncultured,  poorly-fed,  often  home 
less  waifs  on  the  ocean  of  society,  persons  with 
whom  ourselves  had  no  previous  acquaintance,  de 
lay  us  as  much  as,  even  more  than,  Montrose,  Lei 
cester,  Osbaldiston,  Bradwardine,  even  kings  and 
queens  of  English  or  Scottish  story?  It  is  because 
the  historian  of  those,  better  than  any  other,  knew 
how  to  wake  the  chords  of  human  sympathy,  the 
emotion  which  when  exalted  to  its  utmost  is  our 
most  powerful,  our  most  benign,  our  fondest  and 
dearest.  This  world  is  far  more  sympathetic  than 
generally  it  seems  to  be.  No  man  can  live  without 
sympathy  of  some  sort.  Even  old  Timon  was  put 
to  shame  by  the  philosopher  pointing  to  his  eagerness 
that  the  indifference  which  he  pretended  should  be 
known  and  observed.  They  are  few,  and  they 
not  of  the  best,  on  whom  neither  a  sad  nor  a  hu 
morous  story  can  make  an  impression  and  prompt 
to  charitable  action.  One  may  claim  to  despise 
this  world,  yet  he  will  linger  and  mingle  in  it  as 
long  as  he  can,  and,  when  about  to  depart  from  it, 
indulge  the  hope  that  he  will  not  be  forgotten  ex 
cept  for  the  evil  that  he  has  done.  Even  the  gos 
sip,  as  Carlyle  says,  is  a  lover  of  mankind,  and 
backbites  because  the  standard  that  she  has  fixed 
for  her  victims  they  persist  in  refusing  to  attain. 
Dickens  was  almost  the  first  who  was  really  great 
to  attempt,  not,  indeed,  a  diversion  of  sympathy 


108  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

from  any  of  those  to  whom  heretofore  it  had  been 
extended,  but  to  include  within  its  sweet  influences 
those  who  needed  it  most.  It  seems  like  an  anom 
aly  that  the  course  of  pity  should  so  long  have  been 
mainly  upward.  The  tragic  poets  made  mankind 
weep  over  the  sufferings  of  Prometheus,  Orestes, 
(Edipus,  Medea,  Lear,  the  Prince  of  Denmark;  and 
it  was  beautiful  how  even  the  humblest  pitied  the 
misfortunes  of  the  great.  The  multitudes  who  con 
stitute  nations,  who  make  up  the  world,  who  build 
cities  and  highways,  who  fight  wars  and  defend  and 
uphold  kings  and  governments — these  had  small 
space  in  books  or  upon  the  stage.  In  the  fullness 
of  time  Richardson,  a  commoner,  gave  representa 
tions  from  among  them,  and  even  the  prosperous 
and  titled,  notwithstanding  the  weak  sentimentality 
of  these  new  endeavors,  felt  how  abundant  and  re 
freshing  were  the  tears  that  came  to  their  eyes. 
Then  Fielding,  of  the  blood  of  the  Denbighs, 
laughed  his  laugh  at  the  misdirected  feeling  and 
Tom  Jones  made  ashamed  those  who  had  wept  with 
Pamela  and  Clarissa.  Scott  came  on,  a  scion  of 
the  stock  of  the  Buccleughs,  and  he  dwelt  mainly  on 
the  sorrows  of  Montrose,  Amy  Robsart,  and  others 
of  noble  and  gentle  blood.  But  he  was  a  man  with 
a  heart  in  his  breast  that  could  feel  for  men  and 
women  less  than  these.  The  most  pathetic,  the 
most  admired  recital  that  he  ever  made  was  that,  in 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.          1 09 

The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  of  the  sorrows  and  strug 
gles  of  the  daughters  of  Deans,  the  cow-feeder. 
The  success  of  these  few  tentative  endeavors  in  sym 
pathies  of  the  cheapest  was  prophetic  of  what  was  to 
be  when  a  man  born  and  reared  amid  the  scum  of 
mankind  should  have  the  heart,  and  the  genius,  and 
the  opportunities  to  represent  life  therein  in  such 
forms  as  to  enlist  men's  attention  to  all  the  pur 
poses  which  he  had  in  view.  At  first  he  was 
thought  to  be  interested  only  in  the  sportive  side 
of  that  humble  existence,  and  would  lead  men  of 
leisure  to  laugh  at  what  was  baldly  ludicrous  and 
nothing  more.  But  when  he  had  exposed  their  lev 
ities,  lest  men  should  conclude  that  they  had  been 
created  only  to  be  ridiculed,  he  proceeded  to  show 
the  serious  and  the  respectable  among  those  who, 
even  as  the  prosperous,  reflected  the  image  of  the 
Creator.  It  is  very  pleasing  to  contemplate  how  he 
strove  to  exhibit  in  some  of  his  very  humblest  char 
acters  loyalty  to  every  behest  of  honorable  man 
hood.  Take  the  nameless  Jo  for  whom  what  might 
not  have  been  done  but  for  the  want  of  examples 
and  opportunities?  Let  us  hear  the  words  of  the 
dying  little  exile  when  they  have  at  last  driven  him 
where  he  can  "lie  down  and  get  a  thorough  good 
dose  of  sleep. "  They  had  asked  him  if  he  knew 
any  prayers. 


110  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

"No,  sir,  nothink  at  all.  Mr.  Chadbands  he  wos  a  prayin'  wuns 
at  Mr.  Snagsby's,  and  I  heerd  him,  but  he  sounded  as  if  he  was 
a-speakin1  to  hisself  and  not  to  me.  He  prayed  a  lot,  but  I  couldn't 
make  out  nothink  on  it.  Different  times  there  wos  other  gen'l'men 
come  down  Tom-all-Alone's  a-prayin',  but  they  all  mostly  said  as 
the  t'other  ones  prayed  wrong,  and  all  mostly  sounded  to  be  a-talkin' 
to  their  selves,  or  a-passin'  blame  on  the  t'others,  and  not  a-talkin 
to  us.  We  never  knowed  nothink.  I  never  knowed  what  it  was  all 
about." 

Yet  he  begged  them  to  put  in  his  will  his  mes 
sage  to  Mr.  Snagsby  that  "Jo,  what  he  knowed 
once,  is  a-moving  on  right  for'ards  with  his  duty, 
and  I'll  be  wery  thankful."  Or  let  us  take  Joe 
Gargery.  What  a  limited  volume  of  understand 
ing!  What  a  blundering  giant  of  a  booby! — blun 
dering  the  more  ridiculously  when  specially  striving 
with  the  proprieties  of  deportment  and  conversa 
tion  !  How  humbly  triumphant  at  his  one  great  es 
say  at  elegiac  verse!  These  make  us  laugh  until 
we  cannot  sit  longer  in  our  chairs,  but  must  go  lie 
down  and  rest  our  heads  upon  pillows.  Yet  how 
loyal  was  Joe — to  his  shrew  of  a  wife,  always  mak 
ing  prominent  her  one  great  distinction,  she  being 
"a  fine  figger  of  a  woman;"  to  his  ungrateful  and 
rather  worthless  brother-in-law,  even  while,  with  the 
delicacy  of  the  best  society-man,  keeping  himself 
aloof  when  his  presence  was  embarrassing  to  one  who 
had  risen  so  far  above  his  beginnings.  Courageous 
as  simple,  manlike  as  humble,  Joe  Gargery  merited 
the  name  which  a  true  man  likes  most  to  be  given 
him.  He  was  a  gentleman. 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.          I  I  I 

To  interest  justly  in  these  multitudes  required 
pre-eminent  genius  and  the  spirit  of  an  apostle. 
Dickens  had  both.  A  patriot,  his  love  of  country 
radiated  from  its  central  point,  warming  most  his 
familiars  with  whom  he  had  freely  shed  tears  both 
of  sorrow  and  of  joy,  and,  when  become  renowned 
and  powerful,  striving  to  draw  closer  together  the 
widely-separated  constituents  that  made  up  the 
people  of  his  native  country.  Faithful  to  the  de 
mands  of  fiction,  he  taught  more  continuously  than 
any  novelist  that  neither  the  greatest  good  nor  the 
most  despicable  evil  is  peculiar  to  any  class,  and 
that  among  the  very  humblest  were  characters  equal 
to  the  best  and  equally  to  be  respected  by  all 
mankind. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  some  of  the  ad 
verse  criticism  of  Dickens  (especially  of  late)  on  the 
ground  that  his  characters  were  so  much  overdrawn, 
and  therefore  less  faithful  representatives  of  real  life 
than  those  of  Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  and  more 
particularly  some  recent  novelists.  The  characters 
of  Thackeray  are  indeed  natural,  often  painfully  so; 
and  if  the  purpose  of  fiction  were  to  represent  life 
just  as  it  is,  he  would  be  at  the  head  of  the  list  of 
artists  of  all  times.  Many  women  are  like  Rebecca 
Sharpe,  and  many  men  like  Barnes  Newcome. 
Many  doubtless  are  the  quarrels  among  the  genteel 
in  the  privacy  of  home,  and  the  disputants  come 


112         SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

forth  with  smiling  faces  and  deceitful  words.  But 
is  the  purpose  of  fiction  to  represent  this  life  just  as 
it  is,  and  worse  than  it  is — to  exhibit  birds  in  their 
cages  at  seasons  when  in  their  most  revolting  un- 
cleanness?  Is  it  to  put  before  our  eyes  men  and 
women,  boys  and  girls,  and,  tearing  away  the  veils 
with  which  they  try  to  hide  their  deformities,  show 
us  that  these  husbands  and  wives,  ostensibly  dis 
charging  relative  duties  with  reasonable  fidelity, 
are  all  perfidious  to  solemnest  obligations,  accus 
tomed  in  secret  to  quarrelings  and  abusings;  and 
that  these  boys  and  girls,  even  the  best,  apparently 
pliant  to  sweet  domestic  control,  long  to  see  their 
parents  dead,  and  then,  while  clothed  thickly  in 
black,  and  subdued  to  demureness  in  walk  and  con 
versation,  chuckling  in  secret  at  the  removal  of 
constraints  and  the  fulfilment  ot  post-obit  expecta 
tions?  More  than  these,  when  such  things  are 
shown  in  the  strongest  as  the  weakest,  must  we  be 
reminded  that  we  are  no  better,  we  nor  our 
children,  but  that  we,  like  all  gone  before  and  all  to 
come  after  us,  reek  with  ingratitude  and  perfidy? 
No.  This  is  not  the  purpose  of  fiction.  It  is  to 
represent  human  life,  indeed,  but,  in  its  most  elab 
orate  endeavors,  to  represent  the  extremes  of  good 
and  evil  and  to  lead  each  to  its  appropriate  conse 
quences.  The  poet  (and  for  this  end  the  novelist 
is  a  poet)  makes  new  concretes  out  of  the  discordant 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.  1 13 

elements  of  this  lower  world.  He  paints  virtue  with 
as  little  blemish  as  is  possible  to  a  fallen  estate,  and 
vice  irredeemable  except  by  repentance  and  aban 
donment.  The  struggle  between  these  combatants 
may  be  fierce,  sometimes  appearing  doubtful  even 
to  the  most  valiant;  yet  in  time  either  victory  or 
deliverance  must  come  to  the  upright  who  have  re 
fused  to  despair — whether  present  triumph,  like  that 
of  Nicholas  Nickleby  over  the  reprobate  Ralph,  or 
translation,  like  that  of  Little  Nell  or  Jo  of  Tom- 
all-A tone's?  It  is  easy,  therefore,  to  understand 
why  many  of  the  great  poets  have  been  unhappy. 
From  their  efforts  to  rescue  themselves  from  despair 
by  means  of  the  creation  of  better  worlds  than  this 
have  we  gotten  some  of  our  most  important  lessons 
and  sweetest  consolations. 

For  what  end  did  God  impart  to  a  few  of  those 
fashioned  in  his  image  a  portion  of  this  his  most  pe 
culiar  attribute — this  power  to  create  worlds  wherein 
the  virtuous  man  is  more  surely  and  highly  exalted, 
and  the  vicious  more  surely  and  condignly  pun 
ished,  than  at  the  bar  of  this  world's  tribunals? 
Partly  that  we  might  get  the  benefit  of  examples 
always  more  efficacious  than  the  most  studied  pre 
cepts  of  the  wise,  and  partly  that  we  might  be  kept 
from  despondence,  from  the  jarring  discords  around 
us.  It  is  a  wholesome  thought  that  the  good  are 
better  than  really  they  be.  It  is  hurtful  to  believe 


114          SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

them  to  be  worse.  For  our  human  hearts  take  on 
other  forms  of  ambition  than  to  surpass  in  goodness 
the  best  of  those  around  us.  The  multitudes  of 
mankind  are  not  only  more  capable,  but  they  prefer 
to  follow  than  to  lead.  There  is  a  certain  degree, 
if  not  of  self  praise,  of  self  gratulation  when  we 
sincerely  point  to  one  whom  we  admit  to  be  supe 
rior  not  only  to  what  we  are,  but  what  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  become.  We  often  assuage  our  remorse 
for  failing  in  the  practice  of  virtue  by  the  hearty 
praise  we  bestow  upon  those  whom  we  acknowledge 
it  to  be  not  possible  for  us  to  imitate,  and  such 
praise  often  rescues  one  who  otherwise  might  lapse 
into  despair.  Let  the  artist,  therefore — the  artist 
who  is  not  a  mere  painter  of  portraits — bestow,  if 
he  will,  upon  his  pictures  a  touch  here  and  there  to 
render  more  attractive  the  beauty  which  we  love  to 
admire.  Even  the  painter  of  portraits  does  a  grace 
less  thing  when  he  lifts  the  hair  or  tears  away  the 
kerchief  of  his  original,  merely  to  show  a  ghastly 
scar  whose  existence  we  would  rather  have  ignored. 
So  of  the  sportive.  When  the  time  comes  for  us  to 
laugh,  let  us  laugh  with  breasts  healthy,  full  of  mirth 
that  is  as  harmless  as  exuberant.  Such  as  these  are 
imparted  by  the  characterizations  of  Dickens.  The 
best  things  and  the  worst  are  ever  in  contrast  and 
conflict.  We  see  the  saddest  and  the  gayest,  and 
for  both  tears  come  to  our  eyes,  bringing  the  sweetest 


SOME    HEROES    OF*    CHARLfeS    DICKfeNS.  115 

relief  that  the  human  heart  ever  gets  from  a  surfeit, 
whether  of  sorrow  or  gladness.  In  reading  the 
Biography  these  tears,  so  like  and  yet  so  dissimilar, 
will  often  flow  as  they  flowed  from  his  own  eyes  in 
contemplation  of  the  varying  conditions  of  mankind. 
With  him  humor  was  an  antidote  to  the  sadness 
which,  if  he  had  yielded  to  it,  would  have  over 
whelmed  him.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  tells  of  a 
strange  dream  that  he  had  in  Italy,  wherein  a  lately 
separated  relative  seemed  to  have  appeared  before 
him  and  advised  him  to  seek  refuge  from  his  relig 
ious  doubts  in  the  Catholic  faith.  It  is  painful  to 
contemplate  how  a  mind  in  which  the  serious  pre 
dominated  could  never  find  the  assurance  which  it 
sought.  There  was  some  bitterness  mingled  with 
the  tenderness  in  inditing  the  will  of  poor  Jo;  and 
herein  we  can  tell  some  of  the  thoughts  of  the  great 
writer  when  putting  into  the  mouth  of  a  dying  child 
words  humbly  complaining  of  the  insufficiency  of 
those  who  undertake  to  guide  in  the  Way  of  Life. 
A  man  so  beset  must  often  turn  for  relief  from  the 
severe  to  the  lively ;  and  the  more  profound  has  been 
his  sadness,  the  higher  in  hilarity  will  he  rebound. 

One  cause  for  the  relegation  of  Dickens  by  some 
from  the  position  he  once  occupied  has  grown  out  of 
a  change  in  the  tastes  of  the  reading  public  that  has 
led  to  preference  for  the  delicate  and  the  nice  in  art, 
literary  as  well  as  pictorial.  It  is  the  miniature 


Il6          SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DfCKENS. 

rather  than  the  life-size  that  pleases  now,  or,  if  the 
life-size,  with  curious,  elaborate  drapery.  Favorite 
is  the  mosaic,  compounded,  like  the  melancholy  of 
Jacques,  of  many  simples,  and  conjoined  with  mi 
croscopic  painstaking  and  accuracy.  The  analyst 
of  a  hero's  or  heroine's  motive  for  conduct  more 
and  less  important,  especially  in  genteeler  circles, 
finds  now  more  admirers  than  not  only  Dickens  but 
Thackeray  and  George  Eliot.  Even  the  Becky 
Sharps  and  Maggie  Tullivers  are  postponed  to  opu 
lent  ladies  with  trains  sweeping  with  pleasant  rust 
ling  over  costly  carpets,  jewelled  hands  daintily 
plying  fragrant  fans,  and  tongues  chattering  with  ex 
quisite  modulation  on  somethings,  and  on  nothings 
also.  But  such  a  taste  will  be,  as  its  likes  have  ever 
been,  of  temporary  duration.  Genuine  art  will 
ever  endure,  however  often  it  may  be  passed  by  for 
a  brief  space  by  those  who  are  beguiled  by  new 
ornamentations  in  unimportant  particulars.  We 
remember  how  Cowley  was  for  a  time  preferred  to 
Milton,  and  the  poets  of  the  Restoration  to  those 
ot  the  period  of  Elizabeth,  and  how  dramatic  poetry 
in  general  declined  with  the  rise  of  scenic  decora 
tion.  The  bonanza  kings,  their  wives  and  daughters; 
the  nouveaux  riches,  removed  from  low  to  up-town, 
or  from  East  to  West  End,  are  pleased,  or  believe 
themselves  to  be  pleased,  with  witty  sayings,  bright 
dinner  and  tea-parties  among  the  gentility,  cunning 


SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS.          II'J 

analyses  of  human  motives  in  varying  positions,  and 
just  enough  of  pathos  and  humor  as  may  effect  a 
pleasing  sigh  or  an  unexpected  brief  smile.  As  in 
the  time  of  Richardson,  even  thoughtful  minds  have 
become  somewhat  wearied  of  being  stirred  by  the 
thrillingly  earnest  and  comic,  and  ask  for  repose. 
Writers  of  ability  notice  this  condition  of  things  in 
the  reading  public,  and  more  or  less  reluctantly  con 
form  to  their  demands.  How  often  does  history  repeat 
itself!  In  his  twenty  years  of  exile  Charles  II.  grew 
to  be  not  only  not  a  patriot,  but  not  even  an  En 
glishman.  Restored  to  the  throne  of  his  ancestors, 
he  brought  to  his  court  those  tastes  which  the  French 
men  of  letters  had  been  forced  to  adopt  by  the  lack 
of  rhythm  and  melody  in  their  language.  Lord 
Orerry,  a  time-serving  courtier,  was  the  first  to 
begin  with  the  use  of  rhyme  in  dramatic  composi 
tion.  An  interesting  chapter  is  that  which  tells  of 
the  struggles  of  Dryden  in  these  degenerate  times. 
If  otherwise  he  could  have  gotten  his  bread,  "The 
Indian  Emperor"  and  "The  Conquest  of  Grenada" 
would  never  have  been  put  into  rhyme.  Even  as  it 
was,  he  turned  at  length  from  the  pursuit  of  things 
foreign  to  his  native  country,  and  languished  in  poor 
old  Soho,  with  what  consolation  was  to  be  had  in 
thought  of  being  again  faithful  to  the  behests  of 
patriotism. 

It  was  always    curious  what  various  and    often 


Il8  SOME    HEROES    OF    CHARLES    DICKENS. 

what  trifling  and  unsubstantial  causes  may  divert 
art  from  its  legitimate  purposes,  and  with  what 
little  complaining  artists  themselves — real  artists, 
with  genius  and  feeling — will  work  in  conformity 
with  tastes  which  they  know  and  feel  to  be  not  only 
untrue  but  vicious,  and  prefer  to  an  enduring  fame 
a  capricious  favor  whose  end  they  cannot  fail  to 
foresee.  It  is  so  with  pictorial  art,  as  those  most 
versed  in  such  matters  tell  us.  It  is  less  sincere, 
less  genuine  than  it  was  a  score  or  two  of  years  ago. 
But  they  tell  us  also  that  it  is  bound  to  return  to  its 
native  simplicity  and  integrity.  So  it  will  be  with 
fictitious  narrative.  So  will  it  ever  be  with  contend 
ing  forces.  The  fittest  shall  survive. 


THE  EXTREMITY  OF  SATIRE. 


"When  such  a  one  as  she,  such  is  her  neighbor." 

—As  You  Like  It. 

*T^HE  faculty  of  composing  interesting  concretes, 
*  whether  in  verse  or  in  prose,  out  of  the  discor 
dant  elements  of  this  lower  life  was  bestowed  by 
the  Almighty  for  benign  purposes.  In  this  lower 
life  good  and  evil,  their  actions  and  results,  are 
often  so  confounded  that  the  industrious  and  the 
honorable  often  seem  to  fail  of  their  reward,  while 
the  indolent  and  the  vicious  triumph  over  and  mock 
at  them.  In  addition  to  the  consoling  hope  of  im 
mortality,  in  which  good  and  evil  are  to  be  separ 
ated  for  ever,  God  has  imparted  a  supplemental. 
Next  and  subsidiary  to  the  preacher,  whose  office 
is  to  remind  us  constantly  of  the  Last  Judgment, 
is  the  poet,  who  leads  our  minds,  inconstant  enough 
to  need  such  aids,  to  trustful  expectation  of  that 
Judgment  by  creating  from  among  the  inhabitants 
of  this  present  world  those  of  his  own  in  which 
justice  is  administered  in  ways  at  least  approximat 
ing  the  justice  of  eternity.  For  this  purpose,  less, 


120  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

exalted,  indeed,  than  that  of  the  priesthood,  we  be 
lieve  that  poesy  was  bestowed  upon  mankind.  In 
these  new  creations  the  jarring  elements  of  human 
life  are  so  joined  as  to  appear  to  harmonize  in  some 
degree,  or  made  to  cease  their  conflict  by  the  tri 
umph  of  the  good  even  on  this  side  of  the  grave. 
This  is  the  leading,  legitimate  purpose  of  fiction — to 
show  us  a  more  excellent  way  than  the  present  in 
which  we  travel,  and  so  to  hold  us  from  discourage 
ment  for  the  irregularities  and  failures  that  we  con 
tinually  witness  and  experience. 

We  have  made  these  observations  prefatory  to 
some  reflections  upon  satire,  particularly  as  exhib 
ited  in  the  works  of  Thackeray. 

Suggestive  were  the  motives  that  impelled  the  first 
of  the  satirists  of  Greece.  What  might  have  been 
done  by  Archilochus  of  Paros  but  for  the  accidents  in 
his  earliest  ambition  we  cannot  say,  knowing  so 
little  of  his  youth.  But  it  was  his  lot  to  love  the 
fair  Neobule,  daughter  of  Lycambes.  The  maid 
returned  his  passion,  and  her  father  at  first  gave 
consent  to  their  union,  but,  having  ascertained 
that  the  mother  of  the  youth  had  been  a  slave,  with 
drew  it.  Thereupon  the  lover  gave  vent  to  his  dis 
appointment  and  indignation  in  such  verses  (the 
first  of  their  kind)  that  not  only  Neobule  but  her 
sisters  also  hanged  themselves.  Results  so  tragic 
have  not  often  followed  the  scourgings  of  the  Par- 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  121 

ian's  successors,  but  they  sometimes  have  been 
painful  and  hurtful.  Let  us  consider  briefly  some  of 
those  in  the  productions  of  him  whom  many  regard 
the  greatest  of  the  novelists. 

In  the  drolleries  of  Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh 
there  was  a  sufficiency  of  bitterness.  The  name  was 
prophetic,  and  its  prophecies  ran  along  in  rapid 
fulfilment  in  the  Times,  the  New  Monthly  Maga 
zine,  and  Punch.  Yet  nothing  seriously  ambitious 
seemed  to  have  been  attempted  in  The  Fat  Con 
tributor,  Miss  Tickletoby's  Lectures,  Jeames1  Diary, 
Mrs.  Perkiris  Ball,  The  Journey  from  Cornhill  to 
Grand  Cairo.  The  characters  thus  far  created  had 
been  laughed  at,  and  some  of  them  despised,  but 
none  were  destined  to  become  immortal.  If  the 
artist  was  ever  to  take  more  thoughtful  views  of 
men  and  things,  it  was  time  he  had  begun,  for  he 
was  now  forty  years  old.  So  Michael  Angelo  Tit- 
marsh  retired  from  public  view,  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray. 

Vanity  Fair — another  prophetic  name!  The 
wisest  of  mankind,  he  who  had  tried  every  form  of 
prosperity,  riches,  power,  glory,  love,  revenge,  even 
wisdom,  had  pronounced  them  vanity.  In  vain  the 
men-singers  and  the  women-singers;  in  vain  the 
trumpet  of  triumphant  war;  in  vain  the  sweet  peace- 
fulness  of  the  lute,  dulcimer,  and  harp;  in  vain  the 
soft  words  of  wives,  concubines  and  parasites;  in 


122  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

vain  the  royal  diadem;  in  vain  all  human  knowledge. 
The  aged  king,  turning  his  eye  back  upon  the  past 
and  reviewing  his  career,  could  only  drivel  out  in 
impotent*  complaint,  "  Vanitas  vanitatum  !  "  A 
mournful  judgment  to  make  of  human  life,  yet  not 
unfitted  to  one  who  had  used  its  best  things  intem- 
perately,  and  who,  in  spite  of  his  wisdom,  in  spite 
of  his  commission  from"  heaven  to  build  the  Temple, 
had  turned  his  way  from  the  true  God  and  bent  his 
knee  before  Baal. 

We  are  now  to  have  a  Vanity  Fair  exhibited  by 
Mr.  Thackeray.  Well,  men  are  fond  of  spectacles, 
even  the  grotesque.  Invited  to  this  Vanity  Fair, 
although  warned  that  we  are  to  see  deformities  in 
stead  of  excellences,  we  accept  the  invitation. 
What  have  we  here?  Representatives  of  several 
estates — a  marquis,  a  baronet  and  his  family,  a 
tradesman  and  his  family,  some  officers  of  the  army, 
and  a  governess.  We  had  been  led  to  believe 
that  they  were  a  brave  set  of  men,  the  peers  and 
the  knights  of  England.  But  when  we  see  two  of 
their  representatives  in  the  Marquis  of  Steync  and 
Sir  Pitt  Crawley,  we  are  made  to  doubt  if  history 
be  not  in  error  to  assign  to  the  ancestors  of  such  as 
these  the  wresting  from  despotic  kings,  Magna 
Carta,  Habeas  Corpus,  and  the  Bill  of  Rights. 
But  let  these  go.  Yet  we  may  be  allowed  to  hope 
that  persons  in  our  class,  without  ancestral  image  or 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  123 

tradition,  the  necessarily  self-reliant — that  some  of 
these  are  worth  the  bread  they  eat,  the  breath  they 
draw,  and  the  clothes  they  wear;  and  that  the  lives 
they  lead,  or  try  to  lead,  may  encourage  us  some 
what  in  efforts  to  walk  honestly  among  men  and 
reverently  before  God.  Then  who  are  these  Os- 
bornes,  Sedleys,  Dobbins,  and  Sharps?  Indeed, 
with  one  exception,  they  are  vicious  or  contempti 
ble.  That  exception  is  Dobbin.  Dobbin  did  have 
a  heart,  and  therefore  was  made  awkward  and  un 
lovable.  It  would  not  have  suited  the  showman, 
who  had  advertised  for  monstrosities,  that  a  man 
who  had  a  heart  should  also  have  a  proper  figure  and 
winsome  manners.  The  only  apparent  purpose  for 
which  this  heart  had  been  given  was  that  it  might 
be  wounded  and  trampled  upon  with  levity  and  im 
punity.  Behold  what  a  run  of  loves  is  here.  Hon 
est,  clumsy  Dobbin,  risen  from  little  beginnings, 
gives  his  single  love  to  Amelia  Sedley,  who  cannot 
endure  to  hear  his  name  mentioned  along  with  that 
of  George  Osborne,  handsome,  but  ignorant  and  a 
scoundrel.  The  wife  believed  him  glorious  until 
Waterloo,  when  it  was  found  that  had  he  not  fallen 
in  battle  he  would  have  forsaken  her  and  run  away 
with  Mrs  Rawdon  Crawley.  Years  afterwards, 
when  the  widow  has  lost  youth  and  beauty,  and 
been  broken  by  solitude  and  privation,  Dobbin,  now 


124  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

high  in  fame  and  rank,  comes  in  for  the  poor  rem 
nant  of  what  is  left  of  her. 

How  has  it  been  with  Rebecca  Sharp?  The  ar 
tist  tried  his  hand  on  her.  He  gave  the  beauty, 
social  position,  other  goods  to  Amelia.  But  the 
things  which  sometimes  captivate  men  more  than 
these  were  bestowed  upon  the  poor,  plain  governess. 
The  very  relation  of  such  men  as  the  Crawleys  to 
each  other  made  their  pursuit  more  shamefully 
eager.  What  a  scene  was  there  when  on  the  death 
of  the  old  dotard's  wife,  reaching  his  withered  hand 
to  grasp  the  coveted  prize,  he  found  that  she,  not 
having  foreseen  this  opportunity,  had  become  the 
wife  of  his  son!  Then  ensued  a  career  which  it  is 
surprising  that  a  most  gifted  man  should  narrate 
through  long  years  of  circumstantial  details.  We 
look  on  and  watch  how  this  wife  manages  to  pre 
serve  that  middle  place,  tormenting  her  husband 
with  jealousies  that  do  not  amount  to  full  assur 
ances,  and  avoiding  the  disgust  of  other  lovers  by 
semblance  of  the  chariness  of  her  favors.  We  can 
not  but  be  fascinated  by  a  certain  sort  of  heroism, 
evil  as  it  is,  and  we  are  not  too  indignant  when  we 
find  her  at  last  enjoying  comparative  triumph,  be 
come  a  snug  widow,  and  dispensing  in  chanties  a 
commendable  safe  part  of  the  property  so  unexpect 
edly  devolved  upon  her.  Dowerless,  without  beauty, 
without  family,  without  heart,  without  honesty,  she 


THE  EXTREMITY  OF  SATIRE.  125 

fought  her  way,  outlived  most  of  those  with  whom 
she  had  to  do,  and,  so  far  as  the  world  knew, 
was  not  very  far  from  being  about  as  respectable 
as  any. 

We  have  been  to  the  show.  What  now  are  our 
reflections?  What  higher  and  braver  thoughts  have 
come  to  our  minds  when,  wearied  with  toil  and  the 
witness  of  life's  discordant  realities,  we  turned 
aside  to  dream  of  the  unreal?  What  encourage 
ment  have  we  gained  for  efforts  at  well-doing  by 
the  sight  of  honest  work  and  patient  endurance  re 
warded?  Or  what  warning  have  we  had  from  the 
contemplation  of  vice  and  intrigue  overtaken  by 
disaster,  or  at  least  by  disappointment?  Instead 
of  these  we  have  found — and  to  some  extent  been 
ashamed  to  find — ourselves  admiring  a  creation  that 
is  as  seductive  as  it  is  evil.  Added  to  this  we  were 
conscious  of  a  loss  of  some  portion  of  that  which  it 
is  most  calamitous  to  lose.  Woe  to  him  who  parts 
from  his  trust  in  mankind,  who  does  not  believe  that 
in  this  world  there  is  goodness  beyond  that  which  he 
has  ever  found  in  his  own  being  the  capacity  to 
practise. 

In  this  book  the  artist — and  he  was  an  eminently 
great  artist — seemed  to  have  endeavored  to  drive 
mankind  to  their  own  unaided  struggles,  taking 
away  from  them  all  good  examples,  and  leaving 
them  to  conclude  that  nothing  is  real  but  folly  and 


126  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

perfidy.     Let  us  read  this  extract,  like  which  very 
many  might  be  made  : 

"•  Perhaps  in  Vanity  Fair  there  are  no  better  satires  than  letters. 
Take  a  bundle  of  your  dear  friend's  ten  years  back — how  you  clung 
to  each  other  before  you  quarrelled  about  the  twenty-pounds  legacy! 
Get  down  the  round-hand  scrawls  of  your  son,  who  has  broken  your 
heart  since  with  selfish  undutifulness:  or  a  parcel,  breathing1  endless 
ardor  and  love  eternal,  which  were  sent  back  by  your  mistress  when 
she  married  the  Nabob — your  mistress  for  whom  now  you  care  no 
more  than  for  Queen  Elizabeth.  Vows,  loves,  confidences,  promises, 
gratitude— how  queerly  they  read  after  a  while!  There  ought  to  be 
a  law  in  Vanity  Fair  ordering  the  destruction  of  every  written  docu 
ment  (except  receipted  tradesmen's  bills)  after  a  certain  brief  and 
proper  interval.  Those  quacks  and  misanthropes  who  advertise  in 
delible  Japan  ink  should  be  made  to  perish  along  with  their  wicked 
discoveries.  The  best  ink  for  Vanity  Fair  use  would  be  one  that 
faded  utterly  in  a  couple  of  days  and  left  the  page  clean  and  blank, 
so  that  you  might  write  on  it  to  somebody  else." 

Surely  the  Preacher  himself  would  have  been 
puzzled  to  put  more  strongly  the  case  of  vanitas 
vanitatum. 

In  the  literature  of  fiction  there  is  not  to  be 
found  a  picture  drawn  more  artistically  than  Re 
becca  Sharp.  She  was  of  the  sort  upon  whom  it 
suited  the  author  to  exert  his  consummate  powers. 
He  painted  her  to  the  life,  with  pretended  reluctance 
to  evil,  suspected,  yet  not  fully  known  to  be  per- 
suasible  to  consent,  demanding  risk,  high  pay,  so 
that  the  pursuit,  of  which,  if  easy,  a  bold  lover 
would  weary,  acquired  the  eagerness  which  must  not 
be  allowed  to  abate.  No  woman  could  better  un 
derstand  the  trick,  as  sung  by  the  shepherd  in  Virgil, 


TJIE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  127 

of  casting  her  apple  and  then  fleeing  to  the  covert 
of  willows : 

"Malo  me  Galatea  petit  lasciva  puella; 

Et  fugit  ad  salices;  et  se  cupit  ante  videri." 

It  is  a  sad  commentary  on  the  powerlessness  and 
hopelessness  of  a  poor  young  woman  without  other 
gift  then  mere  virtue  to  obtain  success  which 
appears  to  attend  upon  insidiousness  and  fraud. 
It  would  have  been  a  good  sight  to  see  the  lifting 
of  such  a  one,  even  though  slowly  and  through 
difficulties,  where  so  many  thousands  of  poor  girls 
do  rise  through  toil  and  patient  waiting.  In  default 
of  this  the  next  best  would  have  been  to  contem 
plate  her  driven  to  the  frustration  of  every  dishon 
orable  purpose  that  had  tempted  her  from  the  path 
of  rectitude.  Better  than  both  of  these,  for  the 
highest  purposes  of  instruction,  would  have  been 
pictures  of  young  women  who  endured  temptation 
and  outrage  without  expecting  and  without  receiv 
ing  reward  except  such  as  came  from  the  testimony 
of  a  good  conscience  and  of  suffering  for  the  sake 
of  Him  who  ennobled  suffering  and  put  it  above 
successes,  victories,  and  triumphs.  For  had  there 
not  lived  in  such  a  career  Agnes  and  Afra,  Rose 
and  Eulalia,  Lucy  and  Blandina?  If  such  as  these 
be  outside  of  the  art  of  the  novelist,  then  surely 
he  may  hold  up  to  our  view  young  girls  such 
as  Richardson  presented  with  generous  sympathy 


128  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

to  the  public  of  his  day.  Alas!  the  eyes  of  that 
public  were  yet  moist  with  tears  when  the  prof 
ligate  Fielding  made  them  laugh  both  at  them 
over  whom  they  had  wept  and  at  themselves.  It 
was  such  a  joke  to  imagine  it  possible  for  as  poor 
a  girl  as  Pamela  to  marry  a  rich,  hardened  bach 
elor  and  reform  him  after  marriage,  or  for  an 
other  like  Clarissa  to  endure  such  trials  and  yet 
continue  spotless  in  her  virtue!  No,  no;  Rebecca 
Sharp  must  be  what  she  was,  have  a  better  time 
than  even  Amelia  Sedley,  and  thus  be  made  to  ex 
hibit  that  virtue  is  worth  not  even  as  much  as  a 
semblance  that  is  suspected  and  almost  known  to 
be  false.  Satire,  indeed!  Satire  upon  the  men  in 
highest  society,  for  of  the  two  from  this  class  whom 
he  exhibited  one  was  a  heartless  profligate,  the 
other  a  loathsome  brute;  satire  even  upon  marriage, 
for  the  couple  who  were  truest  to  each  other  were 
the  O'Dowds,  whose  rudeness  was  sufficient  to  make 
all  of  both  sexes  feel  like  keeping  away  from  mar 
riage  altogether,  if  this  is  to  be  considered  a  fair  il 
lustration  of  its  most  honorable  estate. 

In  Pendennis  Thackeray's  sarcasm,  if  somewhat 
less  painful  because  more  playful,  is  yet  more  un- 
distinguishing.  On  its  appearance  men  of  letters 
were  disposed  to  regard  it  as  a  satire  upon  the  lite 
rary  profession.  The  truth  is  that  whoever  reads  the 
book,  if  he  be  one  who  considers  himself  superior 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  129 

in  gifts  and  conditions  to  a  rather  low  plane  of  human 
life,  will  find  himself  jeered  at  on  occasions  wherein 
he  will  be  most  surprised  to  find  himself  an  object 
of  reproach.  A  rtliur  Pendennis  lived  to  become  a 
person  of  whom  the  author  was  proud  that  he  was 
considered  a  gentleman  to  be  admired.  When  a 
boy  he  was  polite,  good-looking,  well  cared  for,  of 
sufficient  fortune  and  thoroughly  respectable  family. 
Such  advantages  naturally  lead  us  to  expect  a  quick 
ly-developed,  worthy  manhood.  Yet  very  soon 
after  first  looking  upon  the  goodly  lad  we  are 
made  acquainted  with  some  little  matters  which, 
but  for  remembering  that  he  is  a  special  friend  of 
the  distinguished  author  of  Vanity  Fair,  would 
lead  us  to  infer  that  the  youngster  has  already  been 
sold  to  the  devil  and  is  destined  to  do  faithful  work 
for  his  master.  He  had  the  misfortune,  when  in 
his  seventeenth  year  and  while  absent  from  home 
at  a  boarding-school,  to  lose  his  father,  of  whom  he 
was  the  only  child.  This  father,  though  formal  in 
his  exterior,  was  a  devoted  family  man,  "adored  his 
wife,  and  loved  and  admired  his  son  with  all  his 
heart."  To  the  young  generally  death  seems  an 
awful  event,  and  the  death  of  one's  father  is  cer 
tainly  one  of  the  most  appalling  of  all  its  forms. 
Even  when  the  parent  has  been  harder  than  is  con 
sistent  with  such  relation,  surely  it  must  be  seldom, 
except  among  the  very  worst  specimens  of  boyhood, 


13°  THE     EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

that  one  feels  like  triumphing  at  the  very  hour  and 
in  the  very  presence  of  such  a  death,  and  strutting 
amid  the  possessions  which  it  has  devolved  upon 
him.  Let  us  see,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
his  most  intimate  friend,  how  young  Arthur  be 
haved  when,  summoned  from  Gray  Friars' ,  he 
entered  the  room  where  lay  the  corpse  of  him  who, 
in  his  life,  had  "loved  and  admired  his  son  with  all 
his  heart,"  to  whom,  so  says  this  most  intimate 
friend, 

"Arthur  had  been  his  lather's  pride  and  glory  through  life,  and  his 
name  the  last  which  John  Pendennis  had  tried  to  articulate  while  IK- 
lay  with  his  wife's  hand  clasping  his  own  cold  and  clammy  palm,  as 
the  flickering-  spirit  went  out  into  the  darkness  of  death,  and  life  and 
the  world  passed  away  from  him. 

"As  for  Arthur  Pendennis,  after  that  awful  shock  which  the  sight 
of  his  dead  father  must  have  produced  on  him,  and  the  pity  and  feel 
ing  which  such  an  event  no  doubt  occasioned,  I  am  not  sure  that  in  the 
very  moment  of  grief,  and  as  he  embraced  his  mother  and  tenderly 
condoled  her,  and  promised  to  love  her  for  ever,  there  was  not 
springing  up  in  his  breast  a  feeling  of  secret  triumph  and  exultation. 
He  was  chief  now,  and  lord.  He  was  Pendennis,  and  all  around 
about  him  were  his  servants  and  handmaids.  In  the  midst  of  the 
general  grief  and  the  corpse  still  lying  above  he  had  leisure  to  con 
clude  that  he  would  have  all  holidays  for  the  future,  that  he  wouldn't 
get  up  till  he  liked,  or  stand  the  bullying  of  the  doctor,  and  had 
made  a  hundred  such  day-dreams  and  resolves  for  the  future.  How 
one's  thoughts  will  travel,  and  how  quickly  our  wishes  beget  them? 
When  he,  with  I>aura  in  his  hand,  went  into  the  kitchen  on  his  way 
to  the  dog-kennel,  the  fowl-houses,  and  his  other  favorite  haunts,  all 
the  servants  assembled  there  in  great  silence  with  their  friends,  and 
the  laboring  men  with  their  wives,  and  Sally  Potter,  who  went  with 
the  post-boy  to  Clavering — all  there  assembled  and  drinking  beer  on 
the  melancholy  occasion — rose  up  on  his  entrance,  and  bowed  and 
curtsied  to  him.  They  never  used  to  do  that  last  holidays,  he  felt  at 
once  and  with  indescribable  pleasure.  The  cook  cried  out,  'O  Lord!, 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  13! 

and  whispered,  'How  Master  Arthur  do  grow!'  Thomas,  the  groom, 
in  the  act  of  drinking  put  down  the  jug,  alarmed  before  his  master. 
Thomas'1  master  felt  the  honor  keenly.  lie  went  through  and 
looked  at  the  pointers.  As  Flora  put  her  nose  up  to  his  waistcoat, 
and  Ponto,  yelling  with  pleasure,  hurtled  at  his  chain,  Pen  patronized 
the  dogs,  and  said, 'Poo  Ponto!  poo  Flora!' in  his  most  condescend 
ing  manner.  And  then  he  went  and  looked  at  Laura's  hens,  and  at 
the  pigs,  and  at  the  orchard,  and  at  the  dairy.  Perhaps  he  blushed 
to  think  that  it  was  only  last  holidays  he  had  in  a  manner  robbed  the 
great  apple-tree  and  been  scolded  by  the  dairy-maid  for  taking 
cream." 

If  anything  equal  to  this  can  be  found  in  another 
book  purporting  to  represent  highly  respectable 
people,  imaginary  or  real,  we  do  not  know  where. 
Yet  this  youth  grew  up  to  be  a  fine  gentleman,  a 
favorite  of  the  author,  an  author  himself,  a  great 
author,  charming  the  best  society,  marry  a  sweet 
girl — that  is,  sweet  enough,  we  judge;  the  same 
Laura,  indeed,  who  went  tripping  it  along  with  him 
on  that  same  morning,  patronizing  the  servants,  and 
dogs,  and  chickens,  and  pigs.  Why  not?  What 
has  he  done  that  we  would  be  above  doing  in  the 
same  circumstances?  We  are  told  over  and  over 
again,  by  the  author,  that  we  need  not  turn  away  with 
disgust  from  the  sight  of  such  things,  and  congratulate 
ourselves  that  we  would  not  and  could  not  do  them. 
He  looks  us  calmly  in  the  face  and  asserts  that  we 
both  could  and  would,  and  that  we  actually  do  them 
constantly.  One  of  us  may  have  a  rosy-cheeked, 
full-eyed  boy,  in  whom  he  may  believe  to  see  the 
promise  of  a  manhood  that  will  rise  fully  to  the 


132  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

needs  of  his  time.  As  he  looks  into  those  full 
eyes  he  may  believe  he  sees  the  filial  love  which  is 
desired  and  professed  to  be  in  the  boy's  breast, 
and  that  when  himself  shall  come  to  die  that  fair 
son,  even  if  yet  a  boy,  will  grieve  away  down  in 
the  depths  of  his  true  heart,  will  sometimes  repair  to 
his  father's  tomb  to  weep  there,  and  ever  afterwards 
remember  him  with  pious  regret.  If  we  who  are 
parents  could  not  thus  believe,  we  should  pity  and 
almost  feel  like  cursing  ourselves  that  God  had  not 
made  us  childless. 

Such  sarcasms,  the  very  quintessence  of  bitterness, 
abound  throughout  Thackeray's  works,  and  we  are 
sometimes  made  to  feel  how  insultingly  they  are 
turned  from  the  meanest  characters  and  inflicted 
upon  ourselves.  He  seemed  to  take  a  special 
pleasure  in  recounting  the  quarrels  of  married  per 
sons.  Bad  as  such  things  may  be,  we  dare  not  ex 
press  our  disgust,  because  we  foresee  that  we  are  to 
be  told,  almost  apace,  that  we  are  not  better — nor 
happier — than  those  whom  we  think  we  despise  or 
compassionate;  that  our  "silly-headed"  wives,  when 
they  seem  most  affectionate,  have  least  concern  for 
us,  and  that  all  of  us,  husbands  and  wives,  are  but 
"pairs  of  infinite  isolations,  with  some  fellow-islands 
a  little  more  or  less  near  between  us."  Alas!  there 
be  some,  too  many,  who  thus  outrage  the  holy  estate 
of  matrimony,and  lose  or  trample  upon  the  good  in- 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  133 

fluences  and  the  pure  enjoyments  which  it  was  de 
signed  to  impart.  But  it  is  a  poor  lesson  that  such 
persons  learn  when  they  read  in  a  famous  book  by 
a  famous  man  that  their  own  lives  are  but  miniatures 
of  the  world  around  them.  They  have  weak  incen 
tives  to  amendment  when  they  are  taught  by  such 
high  authority  that  such  amendment  is  not  only  un 
necessary  but  impossible.  Human  nature  wants 
supports  and  incentives  from  every  source  whence 
they  can  be  brought.  Out  of  harmony  as  is  this 
lower  life,  beset  with  perfidies  and  wrong-doings  of 
many  sorts,  it  would  be  intolerable  if,  in  the  ab 
sence  of  all  real,  we  should  be  forbidden  to  contem 
plate  imaginary  good  examples.  If  these  evils 
abound  in  us  and  among  those  we  know  around  as, 
we  might  be  allowed,  at  least,  to  hope  that  some 
where,  beyond  the  pale  of  our  poor  acquaintance, 
there  are  some,  if  only  a  few,  among  whom  vulgar 
ity  and  lies  and  perfidy  have  no  abiding-place. 
Such  sarcasms,  therefore,  even  if  they  were  just, 
would  do  harm.  But  they  are  not  just.  In  every 
society  there  are  husbands  and  wives  who  not  only 
love  but  respect  one  another,  and  there  are  boys 
and  girls  who  love  and  honor  their  parents  sincerely, 
heartily  weep  when  they  die,  and  feel  a  sense  of  loss 
that  only  God  can  repair.  Everywhere  there  are 
thousands  upon  thousands,  of  both  sexes  and  all 
conditions  and  all  ages,  among  whom  the  appear- 


1 3/|  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE. 

ances  and  avowals  of  love  and  friendship  and  honor 
are  not  mockeries  and  lies;  and  such  persons  be 
come  more  numerous  as  the  world  grows  older  and 
approaches  the  fulness  of  the  times  of  God. 

As  Thackeray  grew  older  his  writings  afforded 
somewhat  more  comforting,  at  least  less  despairing, 
views  of  human  life.  In  The  Newcomes  Mr.  Arthur 
Pendennis  seemed  to  have  moderated  considerably 
since  the  day  when  he  strutted  about  his  possessions 
close  to  the  yet  unfilled  grave  of  his  father.  Yet  in 
this  most  studied  and  consummate  story  and  in 
Henry  Esmond  there  are  flings  against  society  in 
general  which  show  that,  if  the  bitterness  was  sub 
dued,  the  lack  of  any  confidence  yet  remained. 
The  latter  work,  with  all  its  splendid  writing  and 
its  several  instances  of  profound  feeling,  is  a  great, 
broad  satire  on  life.  Our  hearts  had  been  made 
sick  in  Vanity  Fair  by  the  contest  of  a  father  and 
his  son  for  the  love  of  the  same  woman,  and  we 
had  strengthened  ourselves,  as  well  as  we  could,  by 
reflections  that  such  hideous  montrosities  were  to 
be  seen  only  in  the  ruder  of  the  sexes;  but  in  Hen 
ry  Esmond  this  sickness  returns  and  in  more  painful 
form  when  we  see  a  young  man,  who  has  been 
jilted  by  the  girl  of  his  choice,  seeking  and  finding 
consolation  in  the  arms  of  that  girl's  mother!  O 
shade  of  Sir  Pitt  Crawley!  thoti  wast  defeated  in 
that  unnatural  strife  with  thy  son  for  the  possession 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  135 

of  Rebecca  Sharp;  but  it  might  have  subtracted 
somewhat  from  the  anguish  and  the  shame  of  defeat 
hadst  thou  foreseen  that,  in  such  another  struggle, 
age  in  its  turn  would  triumph,  the  young  daughter 
fall  down,  and  the  mother  rise  upon  her  ruin !  We 
may  have  thought  it  had  been  enough  for  us  to  be 
made  to  contemplate  the  horrible  history  of  the 
family  of  Laius  of  Thebes — a  history  made  in  obe 
dience  to  the  decrees  of  Fate,  and  which,  though 
in  a  barbaric  age,  filled  mankind  with  consternation, 
drove  Jocasta  to  suicide,  and  (Edipus  to  tear  out 
his  eyes  with  his  own  hands.  Yet  now  in  Christian 
times,  in  high  society,  we  are  made  to  look  upon 
careers  not  very  far  less  revolting,  entered  upon 
and  run  deliberately,  and  not  only  see  the  runners 
not  ashamed,  but  be  forbidden  to  feel,  or  at  least 
to  express,  shame  for  ourselves  for  being  in  such 
presence. 

If  what  we  have  said  of  the  purpose  of  fiction  be 
just,  that  it  was  to  aid  in  consoling  for  the  want  of 
harmony  and  the  wrong-doings  in  this  life,  then  we 
must  conclude  that  Mr.  Thackeray,  with  all  his 
pre-eminent  talents,  if  he  did  not  pervert  and  dis 
honor  his  art,  at  least  came  short  of  its  noblest  be 
hests.  From  the  contemplation  of  his  masterpieces 
we  turn  with  sadder  instead  of  more  cheerful  views 
of  life,  with  less  instead  of  more  cordial  charity  for 
mankind,  with  diminished  instead  of  enhanced  con- 


136  THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRF!. 

fidence  in  men  and  hope  for  ourselves,  with  lowered 
instead  of  exalted  aspirations  for  the  good.  In  that 
series  of  powerful  creations  by  Hogarth,  The  Har 
lots  Progress,  we  are  led  along  in  natural,  inevita 
ble  gradation  from  little  Kate,  innocent  as  a  flower 
in  her  native  Yorkshire,  alighting  from  the  old  wag 
on  at  the  "Bell  Inn"  in  Cheapside,  to  that  last 
scene  of  Dolours  and  Death  in  the  garret  of  Drury 
Lane,  and  we  turn  away  shuddering  for  the  sure 
end  of  vicious  living.  A  mournful  lesson,  but  not 
without  its  benefits.  But  what  if  the  artist  had  re 
tired  her  into  decent  widowhood,  or — many  times 
worse — if  he  had  accosted  us  at  the  door  of  his 
studio,  as,  exhausted  with  horror  and  pity,  we  were 
making  our  way  out,  and,  grinning  the  while  at  our 
excited  state,  charged  us,  and  not  only  us  but  all 
the  world  else,  with  being  no  better  than  his  picture, 
and  declared  that  our  escape  thus  far  from  a  fate 
unhappy  as  that  of  her  whom  he  named  "the  crea 
ture  of  the  pest-pit  and  perdition"  was  due,  and  our 
possible  escape  from  it  hereafter  would  be  due, 
either  to  the  want  of  sufficient  temptation  or  the 
absence  of  detection?  Alas!  that  we  should  be  al 
lowed  to  look  upon  no  good  examples,  real  or  imag 
inary,  and  even  be  discouraged  from  making  them 
of  ourselves.  ILThackeray  in  his  work  had  motives 
which  were  meant  to  be  generous,  we  can  conceive 
of  none  other  than  that  he  believed  the  only  way 


THE    EXTREMITY    OF    SATIRE.  137 

possible  to  amend  mankind  was  to  render  everybody 
contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  everybody  else  and  his 
own  besides.  The  latter,  indeed,  is  in  harmony 
with  the  teachings  of  the  church,  which  always  com 
mends  to  its  children  to  be  modest,  even  lowly,  in 
mind.  But  the  former  is  a  dangerous  method  of 
instruction.  It  is,  indeed,  an  evil  disease  to  which 
the  remedy  to  be  applied  is  worse  than  itself. 
Nothing  is  more  salutary  than  humility,  but  for  its 
best  uses  it  must  be  in  the  heart  of  him  who  "in  the 
midst  of  reproaches  remaineth  in  great  peace." 
"Never  think  that  thou  hast  made  any  progress  until 
thou  feel  that  thou  art  inferior  to  all."  In  order  to 
avail  of  this  counsel  of  Thomas  a  Kempis  one  must 
have  set  before  him  a  standard  of  excellence  of  some 
sort,  be  made  to  believe  that  outside  of  himself  there 
is  good,  and  that  it  is  attainable  by  persistent  en 
deavor.  Otherwise  his  humility  must  turn  back 
upon,  rend,  and  drive  him  to  despair — of  all  con 
ditions  for  the  human  heart  the  most  deplorable. 


IRISH  LYRIC  POETRY. 

TN  his  Life  of  Agricola  Tacitus  wrote  that  the 
Romans,  after  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain, 
were  waiting  for  a  convenient  season  wherein  to  ac 
complish  that  of  Ireland.  The  principal  reason 
assigned  for  this  intention  was  that  the  vanquished 
in  the  greater  island  would  become  more  reconciled 
to  the  loss  of  their  own  independence  if  they  could 
see  it  overthrown  in  the  less.  But  throughout  those 
four  hundred  years  of  occupation,  although  the 
Eagles  went  conquering  into  the  fastnesses  of  the 
upper  mountains,  and  even  crossed  to  the  Orkneys, 
Ireland  was  left  untouched,  and  it  remained  for 
Rome  afterwards  with  a  different  symbol  to  subdue 
and  ever  retain  her  willing  submission. 

It  is  a  proud  history,  that  of  this  brave,  suffering, 
constant  people.  In  it  are  things  of  which  no 
other  among  moderns  more  justly  may  boast.  Its 
illustrious  men  of  every  period,  prosperous  and  ad 
verse,  in  the  enjoyment  of  freedom  or  writhing 
under  oppression,  have  been  the  equals  of  the  best 
elsewhere;  its  generals  have  led  the  armies  of  Eng 
land,  its  statesmen  have  led  in  the  making  of  her 
138 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  13^ 

laws,  its  priests  have  carried  into  Europe  a  civiliza 
tion  higher  than  what  it  had  known  before,  and  its 
music  is  of  the  oldest  and  sweetest  in  the  world.  It 
is  of  some  characteristics  of  this  music  that  it  is 
proposed  herein  to  treat. 

We  say  music,  adopting  the  language  of  Homer, 
who  was  wont  to  stvle  the  poet  MozSoS,  a  Singer. 
The  poetry  of  Ireland  for  the  most  part  has  been  of 
the  lyric,  and,  sometimes  in  triumphant,  more  often 
in  wailing  strains,  has  sung  of  the  glories  and  hopes, 
the  oppressions  and  sufferings,  of  its  native  country. 
Of  all  the  forms  of  poetry  the  lyric  most  fitly  repre 
sents  the  conditions  of  our  interior  being.  Its  best 
songs  have  been  its  serious.  In  the  oldest  times  these 
were  serious  only,  and  for  the  most  part  religious. 
Plutarch  complained  when  the  song  that  had  been 
theretofore  consecrate  to  the  temple  had  been 
raised,  by  voices  not  pious,  in  the  theatre.  Not 
that  the  Greeks  of  a  more  ancient  day  had  not 
sung  of  women  and  wine,  but  their  best  strains  had 
been  of  gods,  demigods,  and  heroes.  Votaries  had 
gone  to  the  shrine  and  warriors  to  the  battle-field 
to  the  sound  of  the  flute  and  the  lyre.  The  one 
eyed  Tyrtneus,  whom  the  Athenians  in  sport  sent  as 
a  general  to  the  Lacedemonians,  led  them  to  unex 
pected  victory,  and  the  bard  was  made  a  hero  even 
above  any  who  had  wielded  the  sword,  the  javelin, 
and  the  spear. 


140  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

The  indvvellers  of  such  a  country  as  Ireland 
must  be  patriotic;  and  if  they  are  brave  they  must 
be  poetic.  Like  Greece,  exceeding  beautiful,  giv 
ing  birth  to  the  gifted,  the  sentiments  most  dear  to 
the  heart  must  find  oft  expression  in  song.  In  the 
Ireland  of  remote  foretime  the  harp  was  to  be  seen 
more  often,  perhaps,  than  in  any  other  country,  an 
cient  or  modern.  It  was  in  nearly  every  household; 
if  not  for  the  use  of  the  inmates,  for  that  of  the  guest, 
to  whom  the  hospitality  that  was  denied  to  none  was 
extended  with  greater  cordiality  according  as  he 
touched  it  more  deftly  to  the  lays,  especially  those 
in  honor  of  deity  and  national  heroes.  When  the 
Gospel  was  first  preached  in  the  island,  its  teach 
ings  were  accepted  without  the  shedding  of  blood. 
Not  that  the  Bards  at  first  did  not  demur  to  the 
announcement  that  there  had  been,  and  that  there 
were,  those  who  were  greater  than  the  greatest 
whom  they  had  sung;  but  the  wise  Patrick  was  not 
long  in  subduing  their  jealousies,  and  afterwards 
the  monasteries  which  he  founded  became  the 
chief  centres  of  Irish  poetry.  Monastic  legends 
fondly  tell  of  the  interest  evinced  by  heavenly 
spirits  in  the  new  music  of  the  Irish  harp;  "and 
this,"  said  Montalembert,  "explains  the  reason  why 
the  harp  of  the  Bards  has  continued  the  symbol  and 
emblazonry  of  Catholic  Ireland. " 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  this  poetry  is  the 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  141 

ardent  love  of  country  by  which  it  is  inspired. 
This  love  sometimes  has  been  only  sweet,  sometimes 
highly  passionate,  but  always  most  fond.  Sometimes 
it  is  evinced  for  the  whole  country,  sometimes  for 
a  whole  district  or  county,  and  yet  sometimes  for 
one  specially  dear  spot,  as  in  St.  Columba's  "Song 
of  Derry :" 

"My  Derrv,  my  fair  oak  grove, 
My  dear  little  cell  and  dwelling-. 

Beloved  are  Burrow  and  Derry, 
Beloved  is  Kaphoe  the  pure, 
Beloved  the  fertile  Drumhome, 
Beloved  are  Swords  and  Kells: 
But  sweeter  and  fairer  to  me 
The  salt  sea  where  the  sea-gulls  cry; 
\Vhen  I  come  to  Derry  from  far, 
It  is  sweeter  and  dearer  to  me. 
Sweeter  to  me." 

This  special  fondness  for  the  place  where  were  sit 
uate  his  "dear  little  cell  and  dwelling,"  though  not 
forgotten,  was  merged,  when  in  exile,  in  the  greater 
regrets  for  the  whole  of  which  it  was  a  part.  The 
banishment  that  was  allowed  of  Heaven,  and  en 
dured  for  the  sake  of  the  great  mission  to  lona 
and  Caledonia,  instead  of  subtracting  from  his 
patriotism,  made  it  only  more  general,  constant, 
and  heartfelt.  Few  things  are  more  touching  than 
the  words  set  down  when  he  was  an  old  man,  and 
around  him  were  a  thousand  evidences  of  the  bles 
sings  that  had  been  bestowed  upon  his  missionary 


142  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

labors.  In  the  midst  of  his  visions  of  heaven,  and 
the  rewards  coming  on  his  speedy  ascension  thither, 
the  longing  for  his  native  land  remained  as  in  the 
time  of  his  young  manhood,  and  thus  he  wrote: 
''There  is  a  gray  eye  which  ever  turns  to  Erinn;  but 
never  in  this  life  shall  it  see  Erinn,  nor  her  sons, 
nor  her  daughters.  I  look  over  the  sea,  and  great 
tears  are  in  my  eye. "  There  was  told  a  pretty  stcry 
of  a  stork  that,  having  come  from  Ireland  and  de 
scended,  in  order  to  rest  her  wings,  near  the  spot 
where  the  exile  was  sitting,  he  had  her  cared  for 
with  tenderness;  and  when,  with  renewed  strength, 
she  rose,  he  knew  that  she  would  return  whence 
she  had  come,  to  "her  dear  native  country  where 
she  was  born — where  I,  too,  was  born. " 

The  harp,  so  sad  in  the  hands  of  Columbkill,  had 
been  struck  long  before  his  day  to  mournful  notes. 
Among  a  people  brave  and  gifted,  wherein  were 
many  independent  chieftains  emulous  in  the  con 
tinuance  and  extension  of  power,  the  death  and  the 
exile  of  many  a  hero  must  be  sung.  Since  the 
time  of  this  poet-priest  Irish  poetry  has  been  mainly 
sad.  Sufferings,  national,  tribal,  family,  and  indi 
vidual,  have  been  the  principal  themes  for  its  ex 
pression.  Occasionally  this  sadness  takes  on  a 
self-reprehending  tone,  when,  after  indulging  one 
fond  personal  regret,  the  singer  pauses  to  reflect 
either  upon  the  greater  sorrows  common  to  the  whole 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  143 

country,  or  the  coming  of  old  age,  which  ought  to 
put  an  end  to  such  regrets,  since  they  have  been, 
shown  to  be  vain;  as  in  '  Duhallow, "  an  ode  trans 
lated  by  Clarence  Mangan.  The  poet,  an  exile  in 
Gal  way.  has  been  singing  of  the  good  old  times 
once  spent  in  Duhallow,  and  he  then  concludes  as 
follows ; 

•'But  my  hopes,  like  my  rhymes, 
Are  consumed  and  expended; 
What  s  the  use  of  old  times 
When  our  time  is  ended? 

•'  Drop  the  talk'     Death  will  come 

For  the  debt  that  we  all  owe, 
And  the  grave  is  a  home 
Quite  as  old  as  Duhallow,  ' 

Sometimes  the  bard  seeks  to  console  the  warrior 
who  has  fled,  or  whom  he  is  urging  to  flee  from  in 
vasion  that  it  is  impossible  to  resist,  and  from 
exactions  that  he  foresees  will  be  impossible  to  be 
endured-  There  is  much  pathos  in  such  consolation 
(in  "The  Parting  from  Slemish")  as  offered  by  Tur- 
lough,  the  harper,  to  O'Niell,  one  of  the  princes  of 
Claneboy,  on  the  night  of  his  crossing  the  Bann, 
which  at  that  time  was  the  boundary  of  the  English 
Pale.  After  some  most  affectionate  praise  of  his 
hero,  whom  he  styles  Owen  Bawn  Con,  he  briefly 
mentions  some  of  the  exactions  of  the  successful 
invader: 

"'  They  tell  me  the  stranger  has  given  command 
That  crommeal  and  coolun  shall  cease  in  the  land; 


144  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

That  all  our  youth's  tresses  of  yellow  be  shorn, 
And  bonnets,  instead,  of  a  new  fashion  worn; 

'    Thai  mantels  like  Owen  Bawn's  shield  us  no  more 
That  hunting'  and  fishing'  henceforth  we  give  o'er 
That  the  net  and  the  arrow  aside  must  be  laid 
For  hammer  and  trowel,  and  mattock  and  spade; 

"  That  the  echoes  of  music  must  sleep  in  their  caves 

That  the  slave  must  forget  his  own  tongue  for  a  slave's, 
That  the  sounds  of  our  lips  must  be  strange  in  our  ears, 
And  our  bleeding  hands  toil  in  the  dew  of  our  tears. 

Then  he  offers  his  counsel  that  they  both  retire 
to  Tyrone,  and  the  mingling  of  sorrow  and  hope  is 
exquisitely  touching : 

'"  C)  sweetheart  and  comfort!  with  tliee  by  my  side 
I  could  love  and  live  happy  whatever  betide; 
But  thou,  in  such  bondage,  wou'd  die  ere  a  day— 
Away  to  Tir-oen,  then,  Owen,  away! 

"There  are   wild  woods  and  mountains,  ami  streams  deep  and 
There  are  rocks  in  Tir-oen  as  lovely  as  here;  [clear, 

There  are  silver  harps  ringing  in  Yellow  Hugh's  hall, 
And  a  bower  by  the  forest  side  sweetest  of  all. 

"  \Ve  will  dwell  by  the  sunshiny  skirts  of  the  brake, 
AVliere  the  sycamore  shadows  grow  deep  in  the  lake, 
And  the  snowy  swan,  stirring  the  deep  shadows  there 
Afloat  on  the  water,  seems  floating  in  air. 

"  Farewell,  then,  black  Slemish!  green  Collon,  adieu! 
My  heart  is  a-breaking  at  thinking  of  you; 
But  tarry  we  dare  not  when  freedom  hath  gone — 
Away  to  Tir-oen,  then,  Owen  Bawn  Con. 

"  Away  to  Tir-oen,  then,  Owen,  away! 

We  will  leave  them  the  dust  from  our  feet  as  a  prey, 

And  our  dwelling  in  ashes  and  flames  for  a  spoil—         [Foyle." 

'Twill  be  long  when  they  quench  them  with  streams  from  the 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  145 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  always  the  devotion 
evinced  by  the  bard  to  his  chieftain,  living  or  dead. 
His  affection  was  as  tender  as  his  pride  was  exul 
tant,  and  at  his  fall  he  wept  with  a  grief  that  is  to 
hardly  be  found  in  any  other  poetry.  We  know  not 
where  to  go  in  order  to  look  for  a  more  touching 
lamentation  than  in  the  "Kinkora"  of  the  bard  Mac 
Liag,  translated,  as  the  one  just  quoted,  by  Man- 
gan.  It  was  composed  after  the  battle  of  Clontarf 
(A.  D.  1014),  m  which  the  great  Brian  Boru,  with 
many  of  his  auxiliary  chiefs,  was  slain.  After  com 
memorating  and  lamenting  Morogh,  Donogh  (Brian's 
son),  and  Conaing,  and  Kian,  and  Core,  and  Dur- 
lann,  and  others,  he  thus  concludes: 

u  They  are  gone,  those  heroes  of  royal  birth, 

Who  plundered  no  churches  and  broke  no  trust; 
'Tis  weary  for  me  to  be  living  on  earth 
When  they,  O  Kinkora,*  lie  low  in  the  dust! 
Low,  O  Kinkora! 

"Oh!  dear  are  the  images  my  memory  calls  up 

Of  Brian  Boru — how  he  never  would  miss 
To  give  me  at  banquet  the  first  bright  cup. 
Ah!  why  did  he  heap  on  me  honor  like  this? 
Why,  O  Kinkora? 

"I  am  Mac  Liag,  and  my  home  is  on  the  lake: 

Thither  oft  to  that  palace  whose  beauty  is  fled 
Came  Brian  to  ask  me,  and  I  went  for  his  sake. 
O  my  grief!  that  I  should  live,  and  Brian  be  dead! 
Dead,  O  Kinkora!" 

Of  the  odes  addressed  to  individual    heroes  we 

*Kinkora,  the  name  of  Brian's  palace. 


146  fkisn  LVktc  f>o£?kY. 

cannot  refrain  from  quoting  a  few  stanzas  from  one 
whose  grief  is  as  profound,  yet  is  tempered  by  re 
ligious  meditations  and  hopes.  It  is  a  translation 
(again  by  Mangan)  from  the  "Lament  for  the  Prin 
ces  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnell,"  composed  by  Owen 
Roe,  the  bard  of  the  O'Donnells,  and  addressed  to 
Nuala,  the  earl's  sister.  It  was  written  some  time 
after  the  death  of  these  princes  in  Rome,  whither 
with  several  of  their  kinsmen  and  families  they  had 
repaired  (in  1607)  to  avoid  being  taken  to  Lon 
don,  by  the  orders  of  the  English  government,  to 
answer  charges  which  have  since  been  proven  to 
have  been  wholly  without  foundation. 

"The  youths  whose  relics  moulder  here* 

Were  sprung  from  Hugh,  high  prince  and  lord 

Of  Aileach's  lands: 
Thy  noble  brothers  justly  dear, 
Thy  nephew  long  to  be  deplored 

By  Ulster's  bands. 

Theirs  were  not  souls  wherein  dull  time 
Could  domicile  decay  or  house 

Decrepitude! 

They  passed  from  earth  ere  manhood's  prime, 
Ere  years  had  power  to  dim  their  brows 
Or  chill  their  blood. 

*'  And  who  can  marvel  o'er  thy  grief, 
Or  who  can  blame  thy  .flowing  tears, 

That  knows  their  source? 
O'Donnell,  Dunnasava's  chief, 
Cut  oflF  amid  his  vernal  years^ 

Lies  here  a  corse 
Beside  his  brother  Cathbar,  whom 

*They  were  buried  in  one  grave  on  St.  Peter's  Hill. 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRV.  147 

Tirconnel  of  the  Helmets  mourns 

In  deep  despair, 

For  valor,  truth,  and  comely  bloom, 
For  all  that  greatens  and  adorns 
A  peerless  pair." 

The  concluding  stanzas  of  this  fine  ode  show  an 
other  marked  characteristic  of  the  lyric  poetry  of 
Ireland — a  never-faltering  trust  in  God  that  he  in 
His  own  time  will  bring  deliverance  to  the  beloved 
land.  After  singing  what  mournings  would  have 
been  had  these  chiefs  fallen  in  battle,  he  ends  thus: 

"  What  do  I  say?     Ah,  woe  is  me! 
Already  we  bewail  in  vain 

Their  fatal  fall! 
And  Erin,  once  the  great  and  free, 

Now  vainly  mourns  her  breakless  chain 

And  iron  thrall! 

Then,  daughter  of  O'Donnell!   dry 
Thine  overflowing  eyes,  and  turn 

Thy  heart  aside; 
For  Adam's  race  is  born  to  die, 
And  sternly  the  sepulchral  urn 
Mocks  human  pride! 

"Look  not,  nor  sigh,  for  earthly  throne, 
Nor  place  thy  trust  in  arm  of  clay; 

But  on  thy  knees 
Uplift  thy  soul  to  God  alone, 

For  all  things  go  their  destined  way 

As  he  decrees. 
Embrace  the  faithful  crucifix} 

And  seek  the  path  of  pain  and  prayer 

Thy  Saviour  trod; 
Nor  let  thy  spirit  intermix 
With  earthly  hope  and  worldly  care 
Its  groans  to  God! 


148  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

And  thou?  O  mighty  Lord!  whose  ways 
Are  far  above  our  feeble  minds 

To  understand, 

Sustain  us  in  these  doleful  days, 
And  render  light  the  chain  that  binds 

Our  fallen  land! 

Look  down  upon  our  dreary  state, 
And  through  the  ages  that  may  still 

Roll  sadly  on 

Watch  thou  o'er  hapless  Erin's  fate, 
And  shield  at  least  from  darker  ill 
The  blood  of  Conn." 

It  is  interesting  to  contemplate  in  Irish  poetry 
the  love  and  fidelity  to  country,  clan,  and  chief.  If 
those  clans  had  been  united  and  so  remained,  sub 
ject  only  and  with  reasonable  willing  relation  to  one 
lord  paramount,  their  country  never  could  have 
been  subdued.  But  as  it  was  with  Ireland,  so  it 
had  been  with  Greece,  similarly  prolific  of  heroes, 
who  each  had  his  following  of  the  bravest  of  the 
brave.  Yet  the  glories  of  Greece  have  suffered  no 
diminution  of  lustre  because  of  the  internal  strifes 
that  led  to  her  fall.  Leuctra  is  not  less  famous 
than  Marathon,  but  Ireland  has  often  been  re 
proached  for  yielding  to  Grecian  example,  and 
gone  unpitied  for  the  loss  of  what  otherwise  she 
might  have  kept.  This  is  one  of  the  saddest  things 
in  her  history.  In  the  midst  of  those  lamentations 
sung  by  the  bards  for  the  ruin  of  whatever  was  dear, 
the  most  sorrowful  are  those  that  were  poured  for 
the  whole  country,  the  mother  of  all  her  clans.  It 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  149 

was  said  that  when  Lysander  had  taken  the  city  of 
Athens,  he  ordered,  and  his  orders  were  obeyed, 
that  its  walls  be  demolished  at  the  sound  of  its  na 
tive  flute-players.  How  different  the  conduct  of 
the  Irish  bards,  who  shared  in  the  fate  of  lords  and 
country,  and  who,  when  invited  with  offers  of  great 
indulgence  and  great  pay  to  sing  in  honor  of  Eliz 
abeth,  despised  the  bribe,  and,  with  harps  in  hands, 
repaired  to  their  hiding-places,  to  come  forth  in  the 
intervals  of  security  and  strike  them  again,  whether 
in  sorrow  for  the  past  or  in  hope  of  a  happier  fu 
ture.  It  was  vain  that  the  minions  of  power  broke 
to  pieces  wherever  found  the  instruments  of  nation 
al  music  and  forbade  to  those  who  touched  them 
even  the  necessaries  of  life.  Persecution  served 
but  to  make  it  more  loved  and  sacred  in  the  island, 
and  some  of  its  songs  six  hundred  years  after  the  fall 
of  Irish  independence  were  as  bold  and  inspiriting 
as  when  Tara  was  in  the  flushest  of  its  glory. 

That  pride  of  ancestry,  patriotism,  and  ever-strug 
gling  but  never-dying  hopefulness  should  have 
stayed  among  the  Irish  so  long  is  one  of  the  won 
ders  of  history.  If  ever  a  whole  people  have  illus 
trated  the  blessedness  of  suffering  they  have.  The 
deep  abjectness  of  this  suffering  has  served  to  keep 
it  unknown  to  all  except  themselves  and  God;  and 
so  they  have  writhed  for  the  most  part  in  silence 
and  secrecy,  and,  receiving  little  sympathy  from 


150  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

mankind,  have  clung  the  closer  to  the  compassion 
of  Heaven  and  striven  to  wait  its  deliverance.  Un 
til  only  of  late  the  sufferings  of  the  Irish  people 
have  gone  with  less  pity  from  the  outside  world 
than  those  of  any  people  who  have  been  sorely  op 
pressed.  After  they  had  civilized  Europe,  their 
subjugation,  followed  by  well-nigh  as  hard  exactions 
as  were  ever  put  upon  the  vanquished,  has  been  lit 
tle  considered  when  compared  with  Poland,  Greece, 
and  others  that  have  fallen  before  or  been  threatened 
with  ruin  by  stronger  powers.  Not  because  the 
world  is  wanting  in  compassion,  but  that  these  cen 
turies  of  writhings  have  been  unknown  to  it.  The 
prisoner  with  the  Iron  Mask  languished  unpitied 
because  unknown  even  to  those  who  dwelt  hard  by 
the  battlements  wherein  he  was  confined,  and 
whence  he  was  drawn  forth  only  to  be  assassinated. 
So  with  Ireland.  The  chains  that  were  riveted  upon 
her  were  so  binding  that  her  very  longings  to  break 
them  were  kept  from  the  world,  and  every  endeavor 
thereto  punished  with  a  silent  rigor  which  it  seems 
strange  that  a  magnanimous  victor,  however  power 
ful,  would  have  had  the  heart  to  inflict.  To  the 
English  people  the  Irishman  has  been  made  to  ap 
pear  fit  only  to  wield  the  mattock  and  the  spade, 
and  the  Irishwoman  to  be  intended  by  Heaven 
mainly  as  a  maid  foi  the  chamber  or  a  scullion 
for  the  kitchen;  and  the  cheerfulness  which,  because 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  151 

of  their  religious  faith,  they  have  been  able  to  main 
tain  in  these  lowly  conditions,  has  been  construed 
into  evidence  of  a  lack  of  the  sensibility  that  would 
render  them  worthy  of  freedom.  Even  in  this  gen 
eration  essayists  in  English  reviews  and  literary 
magazines,  while  contributing  articles  upon  matters 
of  present  or  past  concern  in  the  condition  of  Ire 
land,  would  calmly  write  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
English  people  touching  Irish  affairs — an  ignorance 
admitted  to  be  as  great  as  it  was  in  the  times  of 
the  oldest  Plantagenets.  As  for  its  language  and 
literature,  these  were  not  known  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Sanscrit.  Indeed,  until  the  coming  of  Thomas 
Moore  the  outside  world  knew  not,  and  hardly  be 
lieved  it  worth  while  to  inquire,  if  Ireland  ever  had 
a  literature  or  a  language  beyond  that  common  to 
all  savage  peoples  for  the  expression  of  necessary 
wants.  The  idea  of  Europe  seems  to  have  been 
that  Ireland  ought  to  submit  resignedly,  as  in  time 
it  must,  to  the  destiny  which  had  rendered  vain  her 
obsolete  traditions,  and  fall  in  with  the  line  of  march 
on  the  new  fields  of  national  endeavor.  By  the  na 
tion  of  whom  she  has  been  the  spoil  she  has  been 
regarded  with  a  sentiment  that  conceived  itself  to  be 
contempt,  and  this  has  been  partaken  in  some  part 
by  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  greater  power  has 
seemed  not  only  indifferent  to  the  advancement  of 
civilization  in  the  less,  but  hostile  to  it.  The 


152  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

ing  of  colonists  upon  confiscated  lands,  the  re 
strictions  upon  commerce,  industry  and  education, 
all  seemed  to  have  been  intended  to  repress  all  hope 
and  eventually  suppress  all  desire,  of  independence. 
The  Irish  people  have  not  seemed  important 
enough  for  serious  attempts  for  their  welfare.  They 
have  been  suffered  to  till  the  ground  under  the  su 
pervision  of  middlemen  who  were  robbers  both  of 
the  tenantry  and  the  absentee  landlords,  and,  in 
obedience  to  their  habitude  to  chastity,  multiply 
and  overrun  and  migrate  to  other  lands.  Ever 
holding  their  religious  faith,  from  which  nothing 
has  been  strong  enough  to  force  them  to  part,  the 
ruling  country  has  done  little  except  by  penal  laws 
for  their  conversion.  For,  with  the  average  English 
mind,  they  may  worship  Baal  or  a  stone,  provided 
only  that  they  will  keep  the  peace.  We  were  read 
ing  lately  The  State  of  Ireland,  by  Edmund  Spen 
ser.  The  gentle  poet,  for  want  of  more  honest  re 
ward  for  his  verse,  accepted  the  castle  of  Kilcolman 
on  the  Mulla.  Here  he  appealed  for  "learned,  pi 
ous  and  faithful  preachers  that  would  have  out- 
preached  and  outlived  the  Irish  priests  in  holy  and 
godly  conversation,"  and  he  pleaded,  with  what 
boldness  his  meek  nature  could  employ,  "that  it  be 
not  sought  forcibly  to  be  impressed  into  them  with 
terrors  and  sharp  penalties,  as  now  is  the  manner, 
but  rather  delivered  and  intimated  with  mildness 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  153 

and  gentleness,  so  as  it  may  not  be  hated  before  it 
is  understood,  and  its  professors  despised  and  re 
jected. "  With  much  sadness  he  further  on  calls 
attention  to  the  difference  between  the  clergy  of  the 
established  and  those  of  the  proscribed  faith: 

"  Wherein  it  is  a  great  wonder  to  see  the  odds  which  is  between 
the  zeal  of  popish  priests  and  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  For  they 
spare  not  to  come  out  of  Spain,  from  Rome,  and  from  Rheims,  by 
long  toil  and  dangerous  travelling,  hither,  where  they  know  peril  of 
death  awaiteth  them,  and  no  reward  of  riches  is  to  be  found,  only  to 
draw  the  people  into  the  Church  of  Rome.  Whereas  some  of  our 
idle  ministers,  having  a  way  for  credit  and  estimation  opened  to 
them,  and  having  the  livings  of  the  country  offered  to  them  without 
pains  and  without  peril,  will  neither  for  the  same,  nor  any  love  of 
God,  nor  zeal  of  religion,  nor  for  all  the  good  they  may  do  by 
winning  souls  to  Christ,  be  drawn  from  their  warm  nests." 

Burnet,  in  his  Life  of  Bishop  Bedell,  wrote: 

"Bedel!,  then  Bishop  of  Kilmore,had  fifteen  Protestant  clergy,  all 
English,  unable  to  speak  the  tongue  of  the  people  or  converse  with 
them,  which  is  no  small  cause  of  the  continuance  of  the  people  in 
popery  still.  The  bishop  observed  with  much  regret  that  the  English 
had  all  along  neglected  the  Irish,  as  a  nation  not  only  conquered  but 
indisciplinable,  and  that  the  clergy  had  scarce  considered  them  as  a 
part  of  their  charge,  but  had  left  them  wholly  in  the  hands  of  their 
own  priests,  without  taking  any  other  care  of  them  but  the  making 
them  pay  their  tithes." 

That  was  a  curious  kind  of  religious  missionary 
work  when  the  clergy  who  were  sent  out  to  those 
whom  they  assumed  to  be  worse  and  more  needy 
than  the  heathen,  not  only  neglected  to  learn  the 
language  of  those  to  whom  they  were  sent,  but 
openly  were  guilty  of  conduct  whose  atrocity  was 
the  greater  in  that  it  did  not  seek  to  be  concealed. 


154  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

In  the  reports  of  Irish  matters  made  by  Strafford 
daring  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  among  other  enumer 
ated  things  are  the  following: 

"  The  people  untaught  through  the  non-residence  of  the  clergy, 
occasioned  by  the  unlimited  shameful  numbers  of  spiritual  pnomo- 
tions  with  cure  of  souls  which  they  hold  by  'commendams;'  the 
rites  of  the  church  run  over  without  all  decency  of  habit,  order,  or 
gravity  in  the  course  of  the  service;  the  possessions  of  the  church  to 
a  great  proportion  in  lay  hands  ;  the  bishops  aliening  their  verv 
principal  houses  and  demesnes  to  their  children  and  strangers,  farm 
ing  out  their  jurisdictions  to  mean  and  unworthy  persons;  the  popish 
titulars  the  whilst  obeying  a  foreign  jurisdiction  much  greater  than 
theirs." 

It  seemed  to  have  been  a  maxim  with  the  con 
quering  power,  obtaining  through  centuries,  that  it 
was  important,  not  that  Ireland  should  be  devel 
oped  and  cultivated,  and  made  prosperous  and 
happy,  but  that  it  should  be  kept  in  subjugation, 
poverty  and  despair.  The  bard  must  be  persecuted 
like  the  lord  whom  he  had  served  and  sung.  The 
legislation  done  in  pursuance  of  this  policy  was  as 
effectually  comprehensive  as  the  human  understand 
ing  was  ever  able  to  accomplish.  If  ever  a  work 
done  on  such  a  line  deserves  praise  for  the  sagacity 
which  rendered  it  complete  for  its  purposes  to  re 
press  instead  of  to  exalt,  it  was  this.  The  poverty 
of  resources,  born  as  much  of  neglect  as  from  the 
resolution  to  hinder  their  improvement,  served  to 
keep  from  Ireland  not  only  sympathy  with  its  condi 
tion,  but  acquaintance  with  it  and  even  its  former- 
history  and  literature, 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  155 

But  within  this  century  over  the  minds  of  the  na 
tions  has  come  a  change,  and  it  has  been  wrought 
in  great  part  by  the  revival  of  Irish  lyric  poetry, 
partly  new,  but  chiefly  translations  of  the  old.  It 
is  not  suitable  in  this  connection  to  speak  of  the 
struggles  of  Irish  statesmen  like  Tone,  and  Emmet, 
and  O'Donnell,  and  O'Brien,  and  others  such.  It 
is  necessary  to  say  of  them  only  that  they  were 
free  to  acknowledge  how  much  they  owed  to  the 
Irish  harp  for  the  support  that  the  cause  they  advo 
cated  received  at  home  and  abroad.  The  "Irish 
Melodies"  of  Thomas  Moore  drew  to  his  native 
country  the  minds  of  cultivated  people  all  over  the 
world.  Doubtless  this  result  was  accomplished  the 
more  easily  because  they  were  composed  away 
from  that  native  country  by  a  poet  who,  having 
narrowly  escaped  suffering,  when  a  boy,  for  the  in 
terest  taken  by  him  in  the  movement  of  the  United 
Irishmen,  gave  up  his  revolutionary  ideas  when  all 
hope  of  their  success  had  disappeared,  and  threw 
his  lot  among  those  from  whom  it  had  appeared  to 
be  vain  to  effect  a  separation.  Moore  was  a  true 
patriot;  but  he  was  not  one  to  be  made  a  martyr. 
The  great  Erasmus  said  that  not  all  and  not  many 
are  adequate  for  the  endurance  of  martyrdom.  Yet 
there  is  a  love  of  truth,  and  country,  and  freedom, 
and  every  good  that  is  as  pure,  though  it  may  not 
be  as  courageous  and  as  daring,  as  that  of  those 


156  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

who  are  willing  to  suffer  for  it,  and  to  fight  for  it 
with  unswerving  eagerness  even  when  defeat  and 
death  are  unmistakably  seen  at  the  end  of  the  con 
flict.  Moore  was  not  like  Pindar,  but  like  Anac- 
reon.  Pindar,  secure  in  Thebes,  could  boldly  cele 
brate  the  heroes  of  his  choice,  and  even  admonish 
Hiero,  Arcesilaos,  and  other  princes  of  his  time. 
Anacreon,  an  exile  first  from  his  native  Teos,  and 
afterwards  from  Abdera  and  Samos,  must  console  his 
griefs  as  he  might  with  light  songs  in  honor  of  wine, 
beauty,  and  youth.  Yet  he  was  far  from  being  the 
sensualist  that  he  often  has  been  regarded.  The  pious 
Plato  commended  him  well,  and  by  Athenaeus  he  was 
styled  vf]q>&v  nal  ayaQ6$  — sober  and  honorable. 
Beneath  his  outward  levity  was  a  profound  sense  of 
the  seriousness  which  an  exile  can  never  forbear  to 
feel.  It  subtracts  little  from  this  argument  that  so 
many  of  his  verses  are  addressed  to  Chloe,  Pyrrha, 
and  other  women;  for  all  who  are  familiar  with  the 
poets  know  the  wont  of  those  whose  muse  is  fettered 
to  sing,  under  one  or  another  maiden  name,  the 
perfections  of  their  native  lands.  Without  country 
and  home,  instead  of  resigning  himself  to  useless 
regrets  he  would  mingle  in  the  sportive  throng  to 
whom  "measured  cups"  were  to  be  brought,  and  so 
ever  be  striving  to  live 

"Warm  in  heart,  but  wisely  gay." 

We    cannot  doubt  that  sometimes  in  his  breast 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  157 

were  thoughts  like  those  that  inspired  the  poet  who 
has  been  likened  to  him  as  when  he  wrote : 

"Then  blame  not  the  bard  if  in  pleasure's  soft  dream 

He  should  try  to  forget  what  he  never  can  heal; 
Oh!  give  but  a  hope,  let  a  vista  but  gleam 

Through  the  gloom  ot  his  country,  and  mark  how  he'll  feel! 
That  instant  his  heart  at  her  shrine  would  lay  down 

Every  passion  it  nursed,  every  bliss  it  adored, 
While  the  myrtle,  now  idly  entwined  with  his  crown, 

Like  the  wreath  of  Harmodius,  should  cover  his  sword." 

In  England,  Moore  was  in  exile,  knowing  it  and 
feeling  it.  But  his  was  not  the  soul  to  rouse  others 
to  things  impossible ;  and  so  he  submitted  and  bore 
part  in  a  government  that  he  could  not  hope  to 
overthrow,  laughed  and  jested  among  the  gay  and 
cultured;  but,  when  alone,  yielding  to  patriotic 
memories  or  fired  with  patriotic  pride,  mused  upon 
and  put  into  song  the  noble  deeds  of  his  ancestors 
of  the  far-distant  time.  His  songs  begat  an  interest 
in  his  native  country  that  was  felt  everywhere,  and 
the  world  was  surprised  and  pleased  to  find  that  the 
people  whom  they  had  despised  or  ignored  had  so 
glorious  a  history,  and  that  their  bards,  unknown 
for  six  centuries,  were  superior  to  those  of  which 
any  European  nation  could  boast. 

Throughout  these  poems  runs  a  vein  of  sadness 
whose  pathos  has  touched,  even  to  the  shedding  of 
tears,  many  a  heart  outside  as  well  as  inside  of 
Ireland.  The  laments  for  the  braves  of  old  times, 
the  illustrious  and  the  humble,  the  soul-felt  praise  of 


15  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

their  never-outdone  prowess,  even  the  songs  of  love, 
especially  when  unrequited  or  otherwise  disappointed 
of  its  hopes  of  fruition,  are  such  as  lead  one  to 
melancholy  that  seeks  its  most  comforting  relief  in 
tears.  For  we  know,  I  repeat,  that  the  bards,  in 
making  their  songs  of  devotion  to  their  native 
country,  used  to  substitute  for  its  dear  name  that  of 
a  maiden.  This  name  was  generally  one  or  an 
other  of  the  daughters  of  hereditary  chiefs,  such  as 
Grace  O'Malley,  or  Cecilia  O'Gara,  or  Kathleen 
NyHoulahan,  or  Sabia,  daughter  of  the  great  Bri 
an  Boru. 

The  amount  of  good  done  by  Moore  to  his  coun 
try  can  never  be  calculated.  But  better  than  him 
the  Irish  people  of  to-day  love  Mangan,  and  Davis, 
and  McGee,  and  others — poets  who  knew  not  them 
selves  to  be  poets  until  the  risings  of  forty  years 
back  inspired  them  to  strike  the  neglected  harp 
in  unison  with  the  brave  efforts  made  by  some 
Irishmen  who,  conscious  of  not  being  inferior  to 
the  men  who  fought  in  the  days  of  old,  were  re 
solved  to  strive  to  rival  their  deeds.  It  is  interest 
ing,  but  it  is  most  sad  to  contemplate  the  brief, 
ever-struggling  careers  of  these  patriotic  singers. 
The  Irish  cause,  at  the  establishment  of  the  Nation, 
its  journal,  demanded  songs,  and  men  who  had 
never  sung,  and  knew  not  that  they  could  sing, 
answered  to  the  call.  In  poverty,  sickness,  abscond- 


IkISM    LYRIC    POETRY.  1 59 

ings  from  officers  of  English  laws,  they  sang  their 
songs,  some  old,  some  new;  and  the  world  marvelled, 
as  it  could  not  but  pause  and  listen  to  strains  so  in 
spiriting  proceeding  from  the  mouths  of  young  men 
who  poured  them  forth  in  obedience  to  an  inspira 
tion  as  instantaneous  as  exalted.  Their  season  was 
brief.  McGee-was  driven  into  exile,  Davis  died  of 
overwork  and  a  broken  heart,  and  Mangan,  worn 
out  with  disease  and  the  contemplation  of  his  glo 
rious  work,  which  seemed  to  have  been  done  in 
vain,  was  found  dead  in  his  poor  abode,  where,  in 
his  tattered  hat,  they  found,  on  soiled  scraps  of  pa 
per,  fragmentary  parts  of  other  verses  upon  which 
he  had  been  employed  to  the  last  in  endeavors  to 
weave  them  into  songs  for  further  incitement  to  the 
cause  for  which  he  had  died. 

Some  of  the  lyrics  of  these  young  men  may  be 
compared  safely  with  the  best  in  any  tongue,  such 
as  "The  battle  of  Fontenoy,"  "The  Sack  of  Balti 
more,"  "The  True  Irish  King,"  and  others  of 
Thomas  Davis.  Of  the  kind  we  know  not  where  to 
seek  for  better  than  the  verses  entitled  "My  Grave." 
After  answering  "Oh!  no,  oh!  no,"  to  questions  re 
garding  various  spots  in  one  of  which  it  might  be 
digged,  he  thus  gives  directions: 

"  No!  on  an  Irish  green  hillside, 
On  an  opening  lawn,  but  not  too  wide! 
For  I  love  the  drip  of  the  wetted  trees; 
I  love  not  the  sales,  but  the  gentle  breeze, 


160  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

To  freshen  the  turf.     Put  no  tombstone  there, 
But  green  sods  decked  with  daisies  fair; 
Nor  sods  too  deep,  but  so  that  the  dew 
The  matted  grass-roots  may  trickle  through. 
Be  my  epitaph  writ  on  my  country's  mind, 
'He  served  his  country  and  loved  his  kind.' 

"  Oh!   'twere  merry  unto  the  grave  to  go, 
If  one  were  sure  to  be  buried  so." 

These  were  written  by  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight,  who  wrote  only  because  the  endeavors  made 
by  the  leading  spirits  of  his  country  "required  of 
him  a  song."  He  answered  with  a  humility  less 
only  than  his  genius.  Two  years  afterwards  he 
died.  John  Mitchell  said  of  him:  "He,  more  than 
any  one  man,  inspired,  created  and  molded  the 
strong  national  feeling  that  possessed  the  Irish 
people  in  1843,  made  O'Connell  a  true  uncrowned 
king,  and 

"  '  Placed  the  strength  of  all  the  land 
Like  a  falchion  in  his  hand.'  " 

But  to  our  minds  James  Clarence  Mangan  must 
rise  superior  to  Davis  and  outlive  him.  It  was  he 
who  did  more  than  any  other  to  call  out  of  oblivion 
the  music  of  Ireland's  foretime.  An  invalid,  almost 
a  dwarf,  inadequate  to  the  big  dangers  on  the  open 
field,  his  cheeks  grew  white  as  the  hair  that  prema 
turely  had  bleached  in  comparing  existing  condi 
tions  of  his  country  with  those  when  she  was  the 
educator  of  all  Europe  and  her  chiefs  admitted  to 
be  the  flushest  flower  of  chivalry.  Unable  to  carry 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  l6l 

a  gun  or  proclaim  before  the  multitude,  he  searched 
for  and  brought  forth  the  songs  of  his  ancestors,  he 
put  them  in  the  publicly-spoken  language  of  the 
time,  and  the  Irish  people,  as  the  rest  of  mankind, 
were  surprised  to  know  how  fertile  their  native 
country  had  been  both  in  great  deeds  and  in  the 
records  made  of  them  by  contemporary  bards.  A 
melancholy  man ;  for  ever  melancholy  has  been  the 
Irish  bard.  Sometimes,  but  not  often,  into  the 
great  deep  of  his  country's  sorrow  he  pours  his  own; 
but  he  warns  against  the  despondency  that  has 
fallen  upon  his  heart,  and  tries  to  extol  the  suffer 
ings  that  God  sends  most  abundantly  upon  those 
who  are  His  best  beloved.  Let  us  listen  to  these 
verses  from  "Have  Hope:" 


"  The  wise,  the  thoughtful  know  full  well 

That  God  doth  naught  in  vengeful  ire; 
But  this  deep  truth  all  ages  tell — 

He  purifies  his  own  by  fire. 
Woe  to  the  man  who. knows  not  woe, 

Who  never  felt  his  soul  grow  dim! 
Him  threateneth  dreadful  overthrow; 

Heaven's  love  and  care  are  not  for  him. 


I  too  have  sorrows,  unseen,  alone: 

My  own  deep  griefs,  griefs  writ  on  sand, 
Until  my  heart  grew  like  a  stone; 

I  struck  it,  and  it  hurt  my  hand. 
My  bitter  bread  was  steeped  in  tears; 

Another  Cain's  mark  marred  my  brow; 
I  wept  for  long  my  wasted  years: 

Alas!  too  oft  I  weep  them  now!" 


1 62  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

Mangan  had  studied  the  history  of  other  strug 
gling  peoples,  and  he  loved  to  sing  of  what  their 
bravest  had  done,  and  hold  them  up  as  examples; 
as  in  the  following  from  "The  Highway  of  Freedom," 
when,  after  praising  the  brave  Winkelried,  he  breaks 
forth: 

"  We  want  a  man  like  this,  with  power 

To  rouse  the  world  with  one  word; 
We  want  a  chief  to  meet  the  hour, 

And  march  the  masses  onward. 
But,  chief  or  none,  through  blood  and  fire, 

My  Fatherland,  lies  thy  way; 
The  men  must  fight  who  dare  desire 

For  Freedom's  course  a  highway." 

Of  all  peoples  since  the  establishment  of  Chris 
tianity  the  Irish  people,  though  they  have  been  the 
most  sorely  tried,  are  most  free  of  that  sin,  num 
bered  among  those  called  by  the  church  mortal,  of 
despairing  of  the  mercy  of  God.  It  is  this  freedom 
from  despair  that  has  upheld  them  throughout  so 
many  vicissitudes,  all  of  which  were  unhappy, 
and  made  them  cling  with  unfaltering  devotion  to 
their  country  and  the  religious  faith  of  their  ances 
tors.  They  have  always  felt  that  deliverance,  how 
ever  long  delayed,  must  come  in  the  times  of  God, 
if,  uncomplaining  to  him,  they  will  persevere  in 
endurance,  striving,  and  prayer.  This  truth  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  following,  the  last  quotation  from 
Irish  lyric  poetry  which  this  article  will  allow. 

Among  many  names  given  by  the  bards  to  Ire- 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  163 

land  that  of  Banba  was  one  especially  dear.  The 
verses  following  are  from  "The  Lament  for  Banba." 
They  were  translated  from  the  Irish  by  Mangan: 

"As  a  tree  in  its  prime 

Which  the  axe  layeth  low, 
Didst  them  fall,  O  unfortunate  land! 

Not  by  Time,  nor  thy  crime, 

Came  the  shock  and  the  blow: 
They  were  given  by  a  false  felon  hand! 

Alas,  and  alas,  and  alas 
For  the  once  proud  people  of  Banba! 

"  Oh!  my  grief  of  all  griefs 

Is  to  see  how  thy  throne 
Is  usurped,  whilst  thyself  art  in  thrall! 

Other  lands  have  their  chiefs, 

Have  their  kings;  thou  alone 
Art  a  wife,  yet  a  widow  withal! 

Alas,  and  alas,  and  alas 
For  the  once  proud  people  of  Banba! 

"  The  high  house  of  O'Neill 

Is  gone  down  to  the  dust. 
The  O'Brien  is  clanless  and  banned; 

And  the  steel,  the  red  steel, 

May  no  more  be  the  trust 
Of  the  faithful  and  brave  in  the  land! 

Alas,  and  alas,  and  alas 
For  the  once  proud  people  of  Banba!  " 

But    the  bard,   even  if  he  feels,  must  admonish 
against  despair;  for  God 

**  He  made  his  prophets  poets," 

and  he  can  not  but  foretell  in  tuneful  measures  the 
balmy  morning  that  will  come  when  the  night  of 
darkness  is  overpast;  and  so  he  concludes: 


164  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

tk  But,  no  more!     This  our  doom, 

\Vhile  our  hearts  yet  are  warm, 
Let  us  not  over-weakly  deplore, 

For  the  hour  soon  may  loom 

When  the  Lord's  mighty  hand 
Shall  be  raised  for  our  rescue  once  more; 
And  our  grief  shall  be  turned  into  joy 
For  the  still  proud  people  of  Banba." 

This  is  at  last  the  most  distinguishing  character 
istic  of  the  lyric  poetry  of  Ireland — its  unshaken 
trust,  amid  innumerable  sufferings,  in  God.  The 
Irish  patriot  often  may  feel  like  crying  out  with  the 
Hebrew:  "How  long,  O  Lord!  how  long?"  but 
this  avails  not  to  hinder  his  ever-during  confidence 
in  the  ultimate  deliverance  of  his  country  through 
agencies  that  will  be  of  divine  appointment. 

Important  have  been  the  results  of  these  attempts 
at  the  revival  and  the  imitation  of  the  old  Irish 
lyric  poetry.  Not  only  are  the  other  nations 
coming  to  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  suf 
ferings  of  Ireland,  but  the  English,  the  last,  who 
ought  to  have  been  first,  are  being  led  thus  to  un 
derstand  and  sympathize.  The  cause  of  Ireland 
has  become  the  foremost  of  all  causes.  Its  espousal 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  most  important  gain  that 
till  now  it  has  achieved.  In  the  late  efforts  of  this 
great  man  in  behalf  of  Ireland  there  is  a  pathos  not 
less  striking  than  their  grandeur.  We  would,  and 
we  cannot  help  from  imagining  that  he  would,  that 
he  could  "return  to  the  days  of  his  youth,"  and 


IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY.  165 

have  again  the  opportunity  of  spending  his  giant 
strength  for  the  cause  which  so  sorrowfully  and  so 
rightfully  appeals  for  the  justice  that  has  been  with 
held  so  long.  Mr.  Gladstone  is  generous  as  he  is 
great.  But  in  his  youth  who  knew  or  cared  to  know 
anything  about  Ireland?  Or  if  he  knew,  and  if  he 
cared,  there  was  the  dread  of  casting  away  the 
ambitions  which,  to  young  statesmen,  it  seems  so 
important  to  regard.  Like  the  son  of  Gedeon,  they 
must  forbear  on  account  of  their  youth: 

"And  he  said  unto  Jether,  his  first-born,  Up  and  slay  them  (Zebee 
and  Salmana).  But  the  youth  drew  not  his  sword;  for  he  feared  be 
cause  he  was  yet  a  youth." 

What  might  he  not  have  done  if,  when  young  and 
strong,  he  had  given  his  powerful  support  to  this 
cause,  instead  of  waiting  to  crown  his  splendid 
career  by  an  act  of  justice  that  now,  when  on  the 
verge  of  the  grave,  he  sees  to  have  been  due  long, 
long  ago?  He  has  fallen  because  of  extreme  age, 
and  because  not  yet,  not  quite  yet,  is  the  English 
mind  prepared  to  admit  its  mistakes  and  correct 
them,  and  so  yield  to  what  all  the  world  outside 
foresees  to  be  inevitable.  Yet  this  instance  of  his 
magnanimity,  more  than  all  his  other  achievements, 
will  contribute  to  make  resplendent  and  enduring 
the  glory  that  shall  be  around  his  name.  Mean 
while  the  Muse  of  Ireland,  always  sad  but  never 
despairing,  and  now  more  hopeful  than  at  any  time 


1 66  IRISH    LYRIC    POETRY. 

since  the  beginning  of  her  travail,  yet  prays  Him 
whom,  though  often  sorely  tempted,  she  has  never 
distrusted, 

"To  cast  a  look  of  pity  on  Kathaleen  Ny-Houlahan." 


THE  MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 


\I  7ITHIN  these  last  three  centuries  the  histories 
*  "  have  spoken  of  the  times  between  the  fifth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  as  the  Dark  Ages.  This 
habit  has  led  a  large  portion  of  mankind  to  con 
clude  that,  during  those  thousand  years,  the  Al 
mighty,  disgusted  with  the  failure  of  his  purposes 
and  the  thwarting  of  His  predictions  and  promises, 
withdrew  the  light  of  His  countenance  from  the  world 
and  left  it  to  grope  its  way  as  it  could  amidst  dark 
ness.  Even  yet  there  are  many  most  excellent  per 
sons  who  believe  that  in  those  centuries  nothing 
good  was  produced,  for  the  want  both  of  talent  and 
virtue.  Such  persons,  concluding  that  there  was 
nothing  worth  knowing  therein,  study  with  com 
mendable  zeal  the  histories  of  ancient  times  down 
to  the  fall  of  the  Empire  in  the  West,  and  then, 
skipping  over  the  intervening  centuries,  dwell  with 
fondness  upon  what  has  been  done  since. 

But  within  the  last  fifty  years  honest  minds  have 
been  traveling  a  good  deal  over  what  had  long  been 
considered    execrated    ground,    and    many  an    old 
167 


I  68        THE    MINNESINGER  AND   MEISTERSINGER. 

error  has  been  dispelled.  This  is  not  exactly  the 
occasion  to  speak  of  the  attitude  of  the  church 
during  that  period,  although  it  is  beginning  to  be 
known  that  it  was  eminently  distinguished  for  intel 
ligence  and  zeal,  for  founding  civilizations  and 
producing  saints.  We  are  now  to  speak  of  litera 
ture,  especially  as  it  was  in  Germany  in  the  very 
middle  of  that  long  night. 

Some  writer — who,  we  do  not  remember  just 
now — in  contrasting  the  Germans  with  the  French 
and  the  English  especially,  mused  about  thus:  To 
the  French  nature  assigned  the  land,  to  the  English 
the  water.  Land-locked  on  the  east,  the  west,  the 
south,  and  mostly  so  on  the  north,  the  German, 
having  dominion  only  of  the  air,  separated  from  the 
rest  of  mankind,  has  lived  mainly  upon  his  own 
resources,  and  living  thus,  he  has  become  the  most 
thoughtful  of  men,  the  most  earnest,  the  most  sensi 
tive,  the  most  tender  and  faithful  in  his  loves,and, 
in  the  times  whereof  we  write,  the  most  religious. 
Another  writer*  thus  speaks : 

"The  proper  germ  of  the  romantic  is  the  German  heart,  the  pro 
found  sentiment,  that  love  under  many  forms,  which  was  introduced 
into  life  as  well  as  into  art  by  the  Germans  first  and  displaced  the 
antique, unsentimental  mode  of  living  and  thinking,  which  regarded 
the  senses  and  the  understanding  only,  and  wavered  between  pas 
sion  and  philosophy.  The  consecration  of  woman,  and  of  love 
itself,  by  adoration  of  the  earthly  beloved  object,  is  purely  of  Ger 
man  origin,  and  I  might  call  this  the  leading  trait  of  the  romantic." 

*Wolfgang  Menzel. 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER.        169 

We  are  not  quite  sure  that  this  may  not  be  re 
garded  as  the  most  distinguishing  mark  of  romanti 
cism — the  single,  the  sentimental,  and  the  honorable 
love  of  women.  If  so  the  Germans  are  to  be  cred 
ited  with  the  highest  place  in  its  original,  for  they 
are  the  first  people  who  paid  to  woman  the  devo 
tion  due  as  to  the  friend  of  man  in  all  the  purposes 
of  his  creation.  In  the  times  when  other  peoples 
regarded  their  women  quasi  slaves,  to  be  kept  or 
parted  from  at  pleasure,  the  wild  Germans  treated 
theirs  with  consideration  and  tenderness  unknown 
elsewhere.  These  followed  their  husbands,  lovers, 
brothers  and  sons  to  the  wars,  often  determined  the 
occasions  of  battle,  and  in  the  times  of  defeat 
perished  along  with  their  beloved,  preferring  death 
to  survival  for  whatever  fortune  might  be  offered  by 
the  victors.  Love  and  chastity  were  common  pos 
sessions  to  these  barbarians  when  the  latter  es 
pecially  was  little  known  elsewhere.  They  seemed 
to  feel  that  the  female  sex  were  not  only  to  be  loved 
and  defended,  but  to  some  degree,  reverenced  also. 
Such  sentiments  led  them  to  adopt,  almost  without 
questioning,  the  Christian  faith  and  the  veneration 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  whom  they  celebrated  in 
songs  as  sweet  as  mortal  ears  have  ever  heard. 

English  scholars  have  always  known  of  the  beau 
tiful  literature  of  the  Trouveres  and  the  Troubadours, 


176       THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEfST  ERSINGER. 

themes  of  which  were  the  legends  of  Arthur  and 
the  deeds  of  Charlemagne  and  his  Paladins.  But 
they  have  known  little,  until  lately,  of  how  the  spirit, 
that  produced  it,  spreading  eastward  and  northward 
penetrated  into  Germany,  where  it  found  a  purer, 
more  felicitous  expression  in  the  Minnesong. 

During  the  twelfth  century  among  the  princes  of 
Germany  the  Hohenstaufens  of  Swabia  were  emi 
nently  distinguished  in  all  qualities  becoming  rulers 
of  a  generous  people.  Under  their  benignant  sway 
Swabian  manners  and  speech  became  the  standard 
for  all  Germans,  and  originated  a  poetry  which,  if 
it  had  been  preceded,  has  certainly  not  been  suc 
ceeded,  by  a  better  in  its  kind.  As  poetry  is  older 
than  prose,  so  the  old  poetry,  in  some  of  the  chief- 
est  purposes  for  which  poesy  was  given  to  mankind 
for  the  subduing  of  their  evil  and  the  solacement  of 
their  griefs,  has  been  better  than  the  new.  It  is 
probable  that  the  poems  of  Homer  were  invented 
before  the  author  had  learned  to  write.  It  is  cer 
tain  that  the  most  gifted,  if  not  all,  of  the  Minne 
singer  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  that  their 
songs,  like  their  forerunners  in  Greece  in  the  mouths 
of  the  rhapsodists,  owed  their  preservation  to  that 
exquisite  sweetness  which  led  them  to  be  memo 
rized  by  a  whole  people  and  carried  down  by 
fondest  tradition  throughout  the  ages  of  the  relig 
ious  faith  by  which  they  were  mainly  inspired.  The 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER.        171 

devout  knightly  princes  who  ruled  during  a  century 
over  those  regions  along  the  Rhine  and  the  moun 
tain  land  of  Germany  gave  generous  encourage 
ment  to  this  literature. 

The  Minnesinger  were  so  called  from  their  being 
devoted  entirely  to  love,  when  love  as  never  before 
nor  since  seized  upon,  and  occupied,  and  thrilled, 
and  purified,  and  ennobled  the  heart  of  man. 
Whatever  there  was  upon  earth  to  be  loved  these 
tuneful  brethren  sang  in  strains  as  freshly,  gushingly 
sweet  as  have  ever  been  heard  in  this  world.  They 
sang  of  the  brooks  and  woods,  the  flowers  and 
lakes,  the  hills  and  valleys,  and  their  songs  were 
inspired  by  woman's  love,  and  their  best  and  fond 
est  were  in  honor  of  Mary,  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
Mother  of  God. 

Now,  the  greatest  wonder  about  this  poetry  is 
that  the  most  of  it  was  produced  by  those  who 
knew  not  letters.  The  lover  made  his  song  in  his 
heart  and  his  head,  and  then  recited  it.  It  was  so 
enchanting  that  all  who  heard  would  commit  to 
memory.  When  a  bard  made  a  song  in  honor  of 
his  mistress  it  was  in  the  fashion  following  that  it 
was  communicated  to  her  in  confidence :  He  taught 
it  first  to  a  trusted  boy,  who,  when  he  had  learned 
it  well,  hied  to  where  the  lady  dwelt,  and,  after  she 
had  learned  to  recite,  ate  the  piece  of  cake  and 
drank  the  glass  of  wine  which  she  gave,  and  took 


172        THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

back  the  message  which  she  might  deign  to  send  to 
the  poet,  his  master.  There  is  a  story  of  a  lady  who 
sent  her  response  by  letter,  and  quite  a  time  elapsed 
before  the  lover  could  find  a  friend  who  could  read 
and  tell  him  the  glad  news  it  contained. 

These  poems  were  constructed  with  an  artfulness 
of  rhythm  and  such  arrangement  of  stanzas  as  no 
poets  of  modern  times  have  been  able  to  equal. 
The  varieties  among  these  are  as  numerous  as  are 
those  of  the  songs  themselves.  For  there  seemed 
to  have  been  an  understanding,  not  only  among  the 
poets,  but  of  every  one  with  himself,  that  no  two 
songs  should  be  alike  in  rhythm.  Some  rhymes 
are  in  immediate  sequence  at  the  ends  of  lines, 
some  at  alternate,  some  in  the  midst,  some  begin 
nings  rhyming  with  endings,  and  endings  rhyming 
with  beginnings. 

It  must  be  enchanting  to  one  who  knows  well 
the  German  language  to  hear  these  poems  in  the 
original.  A  German-English  scholar*  some  years 
ago  translated  some  of  them  into  English,  and  suc 
ceeded  often  in  preserving  the  rhymes  employed  in 
the  original.  Speaking  of  them,  the  translator  says  : 

"We  have  minnesongs  wherein  every  word  of  every  line  rhymes 
with  the  other,  while  the  lines  again  rhyme  in  the  usual  way  amongst 
themselves;  poems  wherein  the  last  word  of  the  line  is  rhymed  by 
the  first  of  the  next  line;  poems  wherein  the  last  word  of  the  strophe 


*A.  E.  Kroeg-er,  "  The  Minnesinger  of  Germany."     Boston: 


THE  MINNESINGER  AND    MEISTERSINGER.        173 

rhymes  with  its  first  word;  poems  built  in  strophes  of  twenty  and 
more  rhymes;  poems  of  grammatical  rhyme  in  the  most  various  pos 
sibilities;  poems  of  word-playing  rhymes,  etc.;  and  in  most  cases 
the  fundamental  rhythmical  beauty  reigns  supreme  and  makes  the 
ornamentation  seem  natural  outgrowth." 

Let  us  listen  to  the  following  rhymes  of  endings 
with  following  initials,  and  endings  with  beginning 
words  in  stanzas,  and  then  conjecture  how  they 
must  sound  in  the  original: 

"  Rosy-colored  meadows 
To  shadows  we  see  vanish  everywhere. 

Woodbirds'  warbling  dieth: 
Sore  trieth  them  the  snow  of  wintry  year. 
Woe!  woe!  what  red  mouth's  glow- 
Hovers  now  o'er  the  valley? 
Ah!  ah!  the  hours  of  woe! 

Lovers  it  doth  rally 
No  more;  yet,  its  caress  seems  cosy. 

"  Ever  her  sweet  greeting, 
When  meeting,  my  dear  love  stirs  wondrous  joy. 

As  she  walks  so  airy. 

The  fairy,  look!  my  heart  leaps  wondrous  high. 
Woe!  woe!  what  red  mouth's  glow 
Hovers  now  o'er  the  valley? 
Ah!  ah!  the  hours  of  woe! 

Lovers  it  doth  rally 
No  more;  yet  I  shall  leave  it  never. 

"Pleasure,  sweet  and  steady, 
My  lady  scatters  with  her  red  mouth's  smile, 

And  her  eyes'  sweet  beaming 

My  dreaming,  venturous  thoughts  with  bliss  beguile. 
Woe!  woe!  what  red  mouth's  glow 
Hovers  now  o'er  the  valley? 
Ah!  ah!  the  hours  of  woe! 

Lovers  it  doth  rally 
No  more,  and  1  regrets  must  treasure.1' 


174        THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

Fine  as  this  is,  the  author  is  not  known.     The 
following,  yet  finer,  is  from  Ulricht  von  Lichtenstein : 

"Blessed  the  feeling 
That  taught  me  the  lesson  thou  hearest, 

— Gently  appealing: 
To  love  thee  the  longer  the  dearest, 
— And  hold  thee  nearest; 

Yea,  as  a  wonder 
From  yonder,  that  bearest 

Rapture  the  wildest, 
Thou  mildest,  thou  purest,  thou  clearest. 

— "I  faint,  I  die,  love, 
With  ecstasy  sweetest  and  rarest, 

— When  thou  draw'st  nigh,  love, 
And  me  thy  sweet  pity  declarest. 
— Then,  as  thou  sharest, 

Love,  oh!  I'll  sing  thee, 
And  bring  thee  bonairest 

Redress,  and  over 
Thee  hover,  thou  sweetest,  thou  fairest. 

"  My  hands  I  fold,  love. 
And  stay  at  thy  feet,  humbly  kneeling, 

—Till,  like  Isolde,  love, 
Thou  yield  to  the  passionate  feeling 
O'er  thy  heart  stealing; 
Till  thy  behavior's 
Sweet  favors  reach  healing 

My  heart,  and  tender 
Love's  splendor  to  thee  be  revealing. 

— "I  pray  but  send  me 
A  hope  ere  my  locks  shall  turn  gray,  love; 

— Thou  wilt  befriend  me, 
And  1  of  thy  grace  catch  a  ray,  love. 
— To  light  my  way,  love, 
Thine  eyes  were  fated 
And  mated:  their  swav,  love, 

My  soul  beguiling, 
Shall  smiling  revive  me  for  aye,  love," 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER.        175 

Amatory  as  is  this  poetry,  it  is  amongst  the  most 
pure.  One  notices  that  the  names  of  the  mistresses 
of  these  lovers  are  never  or  seldom  mentioned,  being 
supposed  to  be  known  only  to  themselves  and  the 
boy  who  went  between.  In  this  respect  the  Minne 
singer  were  superior  to  the  Troubadours : 

"  The  Troubadour  was  gay,  thoughtless,  and  licentious,  and  the 
Minnesinger  were  tender  and  plaintive,  spiritual  and  lofty.  The 
former  sings  of  love  and  chivalry,  and  of  the  various  incidents  of 
love  and  "courtoisie;"  the  latter,  although  many  Minnesinger  had 
been  with  the  Crusaders  to  Palestine,  seldom,  if  ever,  alludes  to  the 
adventures  of  chivalry  and  romance.  He  dwells  principally  upon 
the  inward  feelings  of  the  soul,  upon  the  refined  sentiments  and 
pang  of  the  tender  passion.  His  strains  are  chaste  and  melancholy; 
they  are  marked  by  a  disdain  of  sensuality  and  of  the  corruptions  of 
the  world,  with  allusions  to  the  contemporary  history  of  Germany, 
and  occasional  aspirations  after  the  purer  joys  of  another  world  and 
the  sublime  visions  of  eternity."* 

Such  delicacy  was  a  most  fitting  quality  in  the 
heart  of  a  poet  who  would  essay  to  celebrate  the 
excellence  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Of  the  number 
less  poems  in  her  honor  are  the  Lay  by  Walther 
von  der  Vogelweide;  "The  Golden  Smithy"  of  Con 
rad  von  Wurzburg;  and  the  "Great  Hymn"  that 
has  been  assigned  to  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  Of 
all  these  the  Hymn  of  Gottfried  is  at  the  head.  It 
is  wonderful  how  many  images  of  exquisite  beauty 
rose  to  the  mind  of  the  bard  in  contemplating  the 
matchless  excellence  of  the  Mother  of  our  Lord, 
comparing,  or  trying  to  compare,  with  her  all  beau- 

*"  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,"  xx.  71. 


176        THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

tiful  things  and  all  combinations  of  beautiful  things 
upon  earth.  We  think,  when  we  have  read  many 
of  these,  that  the  singer  must  soon  end  his  song  from 
exhaustion  of  all  that  we  remember  to  have  seen 
that  was  most  fair;  but  it  continuously  rises  in  fervor 
in  new  and  fresher  images,  through  pages  and  pages, 
with  such  as  these : 

"  Thou  bloom  of  rose,  thou  lily  grace, 
Thou  glorious  queen  in  that  high  place, 

Where  ne'er  the  face 
Of  woman  shone  before  thee. 

"  Thou  rosy  vale,  thou  violet  plain. 

u  Thou  lovely,  golden  flower-glow, 
Thou  bloom'st  on  every  maiden's  brow; 

And  glory's  glow 
E'en  like  a  robe  floats  on  thee. 
Thou  art  the  blooming  heaven-branch 
AVhich  blooming  blooms  in  many  a  grange. 

Great  care  and  strange 
God  lavishes,  maid,  upon  thee. 

"Thou  sheen  of  flowers  through  clover-place. 

u  O  beauty  o'er  all  beauty's  birth! 
Never  rare  stone,  or  herb,  or  earth, 

Or  man  bring  forth 
Such  wondrous  beauty,  maiden — " 

and  many,  many  more  as  beautiful,  until,  as  if  rec 
ognizing,  late,  reluctant,  that  his  song  must  come  to 
an  end,  he  pours  out  this  last  fond  praise : 

"  Thou  of  pure  grace  a  clear,  fair  vase! 
Of  steady  virtue  an  adamas, 

A  mirror  glass 
Of  bliss  to  bliss  surrendered. 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER.       177 

Thou  fortune's  and  salvation's  host, 
Thou  love-seed  of  the  Holy  Ghost; 
To  all  sin  lost 

Thy  image  was  engendered 
On  sacred  place,  where  at  God's  call 

God's  Son  sank  down  from  heaven. 
Like  on  the  flowers  sweet  rain  doth  fall, 
Such  gentle  sweetness  He  to  all 
Whom  reached  his  call, 

Early  and  late  hath  given." 

E'en  now  it  appears  that  he  could  not  have  ceased 
except  to  rise  to  a  loftier  theme — 

"  Oh  sweet,  fair  Christ." 

Those  of  us  who  do  not  know  the  German  language 
well  may  be  excused  for  some  envy  for  those  who 
do,  when  Kroeger's  translation  sounds  with  such 
rapturous  sweetness  in  our  ears.  Von  der  Hagan, 
a  German  critic,  speaking  of  this  hymn,  says : 

"  It  is  the  verv  glorification  of  love  (minne)  and  of  minnesong;  it 
is  the  heavenly  bridal  song,  the  mysterious  Solomon's  Song-,  which 
mirrors  its  miraculous  object  in  a  stream  of  deep  and  lovely  images, 
linking  them  all  together  into  an  imperishable  wreath;  yet  even 
here,  in  its  profundity  and  significance  of  an  artistic  and  numerously 
rhymed  construction,  always  clear  as  crystal,  smooth,  and  graceful." 

Except  the  earliest  bards  of  ancient  Greece,  the 
Minnesinger  are  the  most  wonderful  that  are  known 
to  history.  They  illustrate  what  may  be  done  by  a 
gifted,  loyal,  devout  people  in  a  country  whose  rul 
ers  they  love  and  ought  to  love.  During  a  period  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  these  unlettered  min 
strels  poured  forth  a  music  that  had  not  been  heard 
since  the  days  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho. 


178       THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

The  Swabian  dynasty  passed  away  and  the  house 
of  Hapsburg  under  Rudolph,  came  to  the  throne. 
The  increase  of  power  and  wars  among  them,  dis 
couraged  both  religion  and  song.  To  gentle 
influences  succeeded  the  rude  manners  of  the  war 
rior,  and  the  Minnesinger  laid  aside  the  cithern. 
Heretofore  poesy  dwelt  in  the  country,  in  the  woods 
and  fields,  by  the  margins  of  lakes  and  streams,  on 
the  sides  of  hills  and  mountains,  near  to  the  church 
or  monastery  where  the  Blessed  Virgin  inspired  its 
best  endeavors.  Henceforward  the  muse  forsook 
these  sylvan  retreats  and  took  up  its  abode  in 
towns,  such  as  Mentz,  Augsburg,  Strassburg,  and 
Nuremberg.  Yet,  assuming  to  be  moral  and  seri 
ous,  if  not  devout,  the  new  poets,  in  some  things 
more  learned  than  the  old,  for  the  unlicensed,  ever- 
varying,  yet  ever-sweet  rhythm  of  their  songs  substi 
tuted  those  arbitrary  rules  which  took  away  most  of 
the  sweetness  from  German  poetry.  Their  very  dis 
dain  of  the  Minnesinger  showed  their  unworthiness 
to  be  their  successors.  Henceforth  song  must  en 
ter  upon  a  new  career.  The  tenderness,  the  fresh 
ness  of  love  withered  away,  and  a  music  insipid 
came  on  after  one  that  was  unapproachably  delic 
ious.  This  was  the  music  of  the  Meistersinger. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  best  poets  have 
been  from  the  country,  either  born  therein  or  there 
in  dwelling,  and  fond  of  country  existence.  On 


THE  MINNESINGER  AND    MEISTERSINGER.        179 

the  increase  of  the  importance  of  the  German 
barons,  and  the  constant  feuds  and  wars  risen  among 
them,  poetry  left  the  fields  of  strife  and  carnage  and 
sought  the  security  needed  for  one  free,  simple, 
gentle  of  spirit,  within  the  walls  of  fortified  towns. 
The  merchant,  the  artisan,  the  inventors  of  paper 
and  the  printing-press,  the  builders  of  houses,  horse- 
shoers,  cobblers — these  took  up  the  lyre  at  the  gates 
where  the  Minnesinger  had  dropped  it  in  his  flight 
from  scenes  of  violence  and  his  grief  for  the  de 
cline  of  the  child-like  devoutness  of  his  country 
men.  It  is  a  curious  commentary  upon  the  poetry 
of  the  Meistersinger  that  its  culmination  took  place 
in  the  person  of  one  who  stood  among  the  hum 
blest  classes  of  artisans.  Yet  Hans  Sachs,  the 
shoemaker,  was  a  great  genius.  Had  he  lived  a 
century  or  two  before,  had  he  been  an  indweller  of 
a  home  remote  from  towns,  had  he  had  the  ancient 
simple  love  of  his  countrymen  for  the  good,  the 
simple,  the  innocent,  he  would  have  been  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  bards.  Except  Lope  ie  Vega, 
he  is  the  most  voluminous  of  writers.  For  years 
upon  years  this  artisan  of  the  town  plied  his  talent 
for  verse-making,  and  Germany  was  flooded  with 
his  productions  on  the  endless  varieties  of  themes 
which  he  sang.  Though  not  without  his  seasons  of 
feeling,  deep  and  intense,  yet  we  look  to  him  in 
vain  for  the  chivalrousness,  the  gallantry,  the  de- 


l8o       THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

vout  fervor  of  the  minnesong.  The  music  he  made 
was  not  for  high-born  maiden  in  bower  or  captivity, 
nor  for  the  benign  Queen  of  Saints,  nor  even  for 
simple  damsel  of  the  valley,  but  mainly  for  those 
of  his  own  class  in  the  streets,  and  taverns,  and 
wine-houses  of  the  town.  Of  his  six  thousand 
poems  the  far  greater  part  has  been  lost,  and  his 
celebrity  rests  mainly  on  his  having  been  the  great 
est  of  that  class  which  came  in  with  the  new  depar 
ture  of  German  literature. 

Henceforward  was  a  marked  declension  from  the 
gentle  manners  of  the  Swabian  dynasty.  Among 
the  makers  of  the  earlier  songs  were  many  of  that 
old  German  aristocracy  who,  though  unlearned  in 
books,  were  most  gifted  in  courtly  graces  and  in  the 
training  of  the  heart  to  the  behests  of  honor  and 
religion.  Poetry,  descending  from  lords  and  knights 
to  tradesmen  and  artisans,  lost  most  of  its  warmth 
and  tenderness  and  accommodated  itself  to  their  un- 
romantic  lives.  Germany  was  now  engaged  more 
in  working  for  the  future  than  in  meditating  upon 
and  praising  the  past.  Towns  and  cities  were  to 
be  multiplied,  and  enlarged,  and  fortified,  trade 
and  commerce  extended — the  practical  to  supplant 
the  poetical.  To  the  undoubting  docility  and  obedi 
ence  to  religious  authority  was  to  succeed  a  sullen  in 
dependence  in  harmony  with  the  wordly  spirit  of  the 
age  among  a  people  who,  notwithstanding  all  their 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEIST ERSINGER.        l8i 

vicissitudes,  have  ever  been  noted  for  thoughtfulness 
and  earnestness  of  purpose  beyond  every  other. 
For  it  is  to  the  earnest  thoughtfulness  of  Germans 
that  are  to  be  attributed  those  religious  conflicts 
more  fierce,  more  disastrous  than  have  been  known 
to  other  peoples.  Long  before  Luther  the  simple 
faith  of  the  times  of  the  Minnesinger  had  been 
giving  way  to  another.  That  other  was  as  serious 
as  its  predecessor — more  serious,  indeed;  for  the 
former,  without  questioning,  accepted  the  teachings 
of  the  Church  as  a  child  takes  its  first  lessons  from 
its  mother,  and  the  adult  Christian  did  not  lose  in 
that  primeval  time  the  faith  and  the  tenderness 
of  childhood.  In  the  development  of  arts  and 
science,  and  trade  and  politics,  that  German  in 
tellect,  always  earnest,  began  to  subject  the  dogmas 
of  religion  to  the  same  tests  of  investigation  that 
accompanied  that  of  sublunary  affairs. 

The  poetry  of  Germany  in  the  hands  of  the 
Meistersinger  must  follow  in  that  march  of  trade, 
and  mechanics,  and  politics.  The  gentle  songsters 
of  the  foretime  had  sung  of  female  loveliness  mainly, 
and  after  that  perfect  type  set  by  Mary  the  Immac 
ulate.  It  was  a  poetry  unconfined  by  critical  rules 
of  verse  or  rhythm,  pouring  itself  joyous,  tender, 
irregular,  just  as  love  and  devoutness  find  sponta 
neous  expression  from  one  and  another  loving, 
overflowing  heart.  And  now  frequenters  of  shops 


1&2        THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

and  taverns,  without  depth  of  sentiment  of  any 
sort,  unsimple,  hilarious  with  wine,  emulous  of 
wealth,  measured  their  verses  as  they  measured 
their  cloths  and  their  boards,  and,  instead  of  the 
bird,  the  purling  stream,  the  gentle  wind,  made  their 
song  keep  time  to  the  watchman's  beat,  the  ham 
mer,  and  the  anvil. 

We  do  not  mean  by  such  comparison  to  deny 
that  there  was  a  considerable  part  of  the  new  form  of 
poetry  that  was  good.  Some  of  it  was  very  good, 
a  small  portion  excellent.  The  writer  in  the  For 
eign  Quarterly  Review  before  quoted  speaks  thus 
of  the  popular  songs  and  ballads : 

"They  were  of  many  sorts:  religious  songs;  there  were  ballads 
for  the  different  trades  and  callings  of  life,  such  as  the  fisherman's, 
the  hunter's,  the  shepherd's,  the  husbandman's,  of  which  the  melody 
as  well  as  the  words  are  imitative  of  the  sounds  and  scenes  familiar 
to  each.  The  fisherman's  song  is  distinguished  by  a  monotonous, 
hollow  tune  resembling  the  moaning  of  the  wave  striking  against 
the  shore.  That  of  the  hunter  is  shrill  and  wild;  that  of  the  shep 
herd  soft  and  calm.  The  songs  of  the  husbandman  are  varied,  some 
for  each  season,  adapted  to  the  various  works  of  the  field.  In  several 
towns  and  villages  in  Germany,  towards  the  beginning  of  the  spring, 
winter,  represent  by  a  jack-straw,  is  driven  out  by  the  children 
amidst  joyous  clamors.  The  wine-dresser's  song  is  like  those  of 
old,  satirical  and  somewhat  licentious.  The  miner's  lays  are  among 
the  best.  They  are  marked  by  a  sort  of  religious  awe,  as  his  labor  is 
among  the  mysteries  of  the  subterraneous  creation;  they  tell  of 
sylphs  and  other  genii  which  guard  the  treasures  concealed  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth." 

Some  of  the  religious  ballads  and  songs  have 
much  depth  of  feeling.  They  are  without  the 
sweetness  and  the  joyousness  of  the  minnesong, 


THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSlNGER.        183 

but  in  great  part  are  hymns  upon  the  mysteries  of 
Christianity — faith,  eternity,  etc.  Long  before  Lu 
ther,  we  repeat,  the  earnest,  deeply  religious  mind 
of  the  Germans  had  grown  restive  under  the  con 
straints  of  the  Church,  and,  because  of  the  very 
simplicity  of  her  teachings,  been  gaining  habits  of 
questioning  and  doubting  that  were  destined,  under 
a  bold  leader,  to  culminate  in  revolt  and  war.  Lu 
ther  was  a  man  of  eminent  gifts.  He  was  an  orator 
and  he  was  a  poet — two  gifts  that  seldom  unite  in 
an  individual.  Not  that  he  was  a  great  poet,  nor 
great  as  an  orator.  His  poetry  is  hard,  severe ;  but 
much  of  it  is  deep,  melancholy  and  wonderfully 
impressive.  Then  he  was  a  statesman,  and  could 
have  been  a  warrior.  We  have  seen  that  the  mind 
of  Germany  had  been  already  growing  restive  with 
thoughts  of  independence.  Upon  this  current  of 
change  the  young  monk,  more  fitted  for  the  forum 
and  the  field  than  for  the  altar  and  the  cloister, 
found  himself  drifting.  The  consciousness  of  ex 
traordinary  powers  to  lead  and  control  mankind, 
courage  that  no  danger  seemed  to  daunt,  a  will 
changeless  as  the  course  of  the  stars,  a  temper  that 
burned  with  the  fierceness  of  a  furnace  seven  times 
heated,  he  led  that  career  the  culmination  of  which 
himself,  with  all  his  powers,  did  not  clearly  foresee. 

With  the  advent  of  Luther  came  on  a  wonderful 
change  in  the  prose  literature  of  Germany.     Hith- 


I&4       THE    MINNESINGER  AND  MEISTERSINGER. 

erto  it  was  almost  entirely  worthless,  the  great  prose 
writers  employing  the  Latin  tongue.  The  lead  of 
Luther  excited  the  nation  throughout  to  all  its  bor 
ders.  The  Meistersinger,  almost  the  only  poets  who 
then  existed,  lent  their  art,  such  as  it  was,  to  the 
new  doctrines.  The  German  nation  became  dispu 
tants  with  tongue,  and  pen,  and  sword.  When 
men's  minds  are  occupied  mainly  with  thoughts  and 
discussions  upon  the  forms  of  religious  worship  and 
the  dogmas  of  conflicting  faiths,  the  muses,  averse  to 
such  conflicts,  absent  themselves  from  earth  and 
leave  mankind  to  wrangle  out  their  lives  in  such 
language  as  they  can  find  without  inspiration  from 
them.  Already  had  poesy  drooped  her  wings  when 
she  was  taken  from  the  fountain  and  the  hill-side, 
the  meadow  and  the  lake,  and  made  to  dwell  in 
walled  towns  and  mingle  in  the  business  of  the 
streets  and  the  workshops.  But  now,  when  she 
was  called  upon  for  rhymes  upon  free-will,  justifica 
tion  by  faith,  the  worthlessness  of  works,  and  such 
like  themes,  she  ceased  to  soar  at  all,  and  retired, 
to  be  again  invoked  in  another  age. 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GOETHE. 

THE  revolution  produced  in  Germany  by  the 
movement  known  as  the  "Reformation"  was 
most  discouraging  to  polite  literature.  The  song, 
devout  and  cheerful  as  it  had  been,  was  hushed, 
and  German  imagination  for  a  hundred  years 
brooded  in  silence  or  gave  utterance  to  its  dreams 
in  verses  worse  even  than  those  of  the  Meistersinger. 
Those  minds,  always  thoughtful,  yearned  for  they 
knew  not  precisely  what,  and  must  come  at  length 
to  let  other  peoples  direct  their  aspirations  and 
give  them  strange  tongues.  It  is  most  remarkable 
what,  in  the  midst  of  this  season  of  inactivity  and 
discouragement,  the  other  nations  of  Europe  did 
for  Germany. 

The  Saxon  period,  so  named  from  the  native 
home  of  Luther,  was  essentially  prose,  but  it  did 
wonders  in  developing  German  intellect  and  lan 
guage.  The  fierceness  with  which  Luther  warred, 
his  mighty  influence  among  his  countrymen,  aroused 
within  them  a  new  impulse  both  to  read  and  to  write, 
and  the  German  language  became  one  of  the  richest 
in  Europe  for  the  discussion  of  the  serious  concerns 
'85 


1 86  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

of  man,  mortal  and  eternal.  But  it  is  tiresome  and 
it  is  sad  to  read  the  literature  of  that  period,  its 
gloomy  complainings,  its  unrelenting  warrings,  its 
gradual,  inevitable  descent  into  the  depths  of  mys 
ticism  and  doubt,  which  have  made  faithless  and 
godless  so  many  of  that  gifted  and  naturally  most 
religious  people.  To  the  influences  of  these  in 
ternal  struggles  were  added,  among  others  less  impor 
tant,  those  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  similar  in  du 
ration  and  disastrous  consequences  to  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses.  No  people  fight  like  the  Germans,  es 
pecially  when  they  fight  with  one  another.  So  brave, 
so  serious,  the  German  knows  not  to  yield,  except  to 
superior  physical  force,  and  when  he  yields  at  length 
to  that,  it  is  a  sullen  submission  that  waits  for  other 
times  and  other  opportunities  to  renew  the  conflict. 
In  these  terrific  wars  of  many  kinds  German  litera 
ture,  poor  as  it  had  become  for  the  soothing,  sweet 
behests  of  poetry,  seemed  destined  to  return  into 
the  barbarism  of  the  past,  until  finally,  ashamed, 
disgusted  with  its  own  doings,  and  discouraged  with 
the  possibilities  of  its  endeavors,  the  German  mind 
sought,  as  it  seemed,  to  ignore  what  it  had  known, 
to  yield  its  individuality,  and  engraft  upon  itself  a 
foreign  existence. 

It  is  interesting  to  contemplate  that  continuous 
travelling  hither  and  thither,  during  the  latter  part 
of  the  seventeenth  and  much  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GOETHE.  1 87 

turies,  in  search  of  foreign  sentiments  and  foreign 
forms  of  expression.  It  reminds  one  of  the  mis 
sions  of  the  first  rude  Romans,  seeking  amid  cultured 
peoples  for  laws  with  which  to  control  and  guide 
their  ignorant  and  lawless  populace.  Fortunately 
for  German  literature,  no  single  foreign  nationality 
could  please  universally.  Fierce  were  the  struggles 
among  the  different  invaders  who  had  been  invited 
— the  Greeks,  the  French,  the  Dutch,  the  English. 
Of  these  the  French  under  the  lead  first  of  Opitz, 
and  afterwards  and  especially  of  Voltaire,  seemed 
as  if  they  must  prevail;  and  the  German  nation  ap 
peared  as  if  anxious  to  give  themselves  up  entirely 
to  the  people  who  in  all  respects  were  least  similar 
to  themselves.  The  German,  naturally  simple, 
thoughtful,  tender,  in  the  times  whereof  we  write 
seemed  to  have  grown  ashamed  of  himself  for  being 
such,  and  endeavored  to  become  gay,  supple,  affec 
ted.  "German  simplicity  of  manners,  nay,  the 
very  language  itself,  disappeared  from  the  court 
and  from  the  castles  of  the  nobility.  The  higher 
literati,  the  public  officials,  even  the  richer  burghers, 
ceased  to  speak  their  mother-tongue."*  Menzel 
says  that  French  influence  extended  even  to  the 
habits  of  physical  life:  "Paleness  came  into  favor; 
a  lady  without  the  vapors  belonged  not  to  good  so 
ciety.  The  hearty  daughters  of  German  country 

*Metcalf's  "German  Literature." 


I  88  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

gentlemen,  sound  to  the  core,  painted  themselves 
white,  starved  themselves  thin,  and  drank  vinegar, 
in  order  to  get  up  the  genuine  invalid  look. "  What 
was  to  become  of  the  patriotism  and  the  morals  of 
a  people  thus  habituated  was  plain  to  foresee. 

We  have  made  these  observations  preliminary  to 
a  brief  study  of  that  man  who.  belonging  not 
specially  to  any  of  the  various  schools,  employed 
the  ideas  and  the  discipline  of  each  as  it  hap 
pened  to  suit  his  purposes  or  his  whims.  There 
has  never  lived  a  man  about  whom  have  been  more 
conflicting  opinions  than  Goethe.  Not  as  to  his 
claims  to  be  regarded  as  a  great  genius.  On 
these  there  has  been  and  can  be  but  one  opin 
ion.  It  is  the  most  illustrious  name  in  the  litera 
ture  of  Europe  since  Shakespeare.  In  some  re 
spects  Goethe  went  beyond  even  him.  For  not 
only  was  he  a  great  poet,  but  he  was  a  scientist 
and  a  discoverer  in  science.  He  was  conversant 
with  art.  From  his  youth,  even  his  childhood,  to 
old  age,  far-advanced  old  age,  the  possession  of 
health,  pecuniary  means,  all  good  opportunities, 
combined  with  sleepless  industry  in  study  and  in 
work — all  these  allowed  him  to  do  his  very  best  in 
the  various  fields  of  his  endeavors.  An  aristocrat, 
or  at  least  of  aristocratic  ambitions  and  pretensions 
sympathizing  only  with  the  aristocracy  or  other 
fortunates — who,  like  the  rich  Persicus  of  Juvenal, 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCKTHE.  189 

during  an  insignificant  misfortune  are  wont  to  re 
ceive  contributions  that  compensate  over  and  over 
for  all  losses,  real  and  imaginary — he  became  a 
trimmer  in  literature  as  in  politics.  The  distin 
guishing  characteristic  of  Goethe's  being  was  selfish 
ness.  He  was  the  most  exquisitely,  imperturbably, 
continuously  selfish  mortal  that  has  ever  lived  in 
this  world,  at  least  among  those  of,  or  in  approxi 
mation  to,  his  own  social  and  intellectual  rank. 
Some  years  ago  we  read  his  Autobiography,  which, 
instead  of  an  apologia,  a  name  usually  given  by 
modest  men  to  such  a  work,  he  styled  "Poetry  and 
Truth."  We  have  been  sometimes  sorry  that  we 
read  it.  In  this  book  it  is  wonderful  to  notice  the 
coldness  with  which  he  alludes  to  the  various  love- 
passages  he  had  with  young  girls;  how  he  trifled 
with  their  affections;  how  little  he  cared  for  their 
disappointments,  their  sense  of  humiliation,  and  how 
he  seemed  to  have  neither  remorse  nor  regret  for 
the  unhappiness  that  resulted  from  changes  of  his 
purposes  and  violations  of  his  pledges.  It  was  suf 
ficient,  in  his  mind,  for  them  to  remember  that  such 
changes  and  violations  had  been  done  by  Johann 
Wolfgang  von  Goethe,  to  whom  all  mankind  owed 
too  much  gratitude  for  service  upon  various  fields 
to  let  him  be  disturbed  by  remembrance  of  what, 
in  hours  of  youthful  levity,  he  may  have  said  and 
done  in  the  society  of  a  few  individual  girls  and 


19°  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

women.  Not  that  even  in  this  world  he  did  not 
have  to  pay  for  such  things,  and  in  ways  poignant 
and  humiliating. 

In  an  age  of  despotism  a  selfish  man  will  ever  be 
a  time-server.  This  was  an  age  of  despotism  man 
ifold,  not  only  political,  as  Prussia  has  ever  wielded 
but  religious  and  literary.  French  literature  first 
and  most  powerful,  Greek  literature  next,  English 
literature  last.  Lessing,  single-minded,  combative, 
heroic,  had  to  fight  single-handed,  and  died  reeking 
with  the  sweat  of  battle  before  he  could  raise  or 
hear  a  shout  of  victory.  Had  he  been  joined  by 
Goethe,  whom  without  a  pang  he  would  have  been 
ready  to  acknowledge  and  follow  as  leader,  the  war 
would  sooner  and  easily  have  been  ended.  Yet 
this  man,  in  whose  intellect  were  characteristics  of 
the  most  gifted  of  all  ages,  ancient  and  modern, 
gave  himself  to  the  management  of  the  political 
affairs  of  a  German  duke,  and  in  hours  of  leisure 
humored  and  flattered  and  tantalized  these  several 
despotisms,  according  to  the  individual  caprices 
and  whims  of  each.  In  this  various  work  the 
things  which  he  did  are  among  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  Yet  of  all  wonders  connected  with  them  this 
is  the  chiefest:  that  none  of  them  were  done  by 
actuation  of  love  of  country,  love  of  mankind,  or 
love  of  God.  Not  that  Goethe  was  not  a  man  of 
feeling.  So  much  the  worse,  and  he  pursued  that 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  191 

role  of  the  great  poet  in  creating  concrete  exist 
ences  out  of  his  own  heart's  experiences.  He  had 
loved  the  lithe  little  Gretchen,  and  her  he  immortal 
ized  in  Faust.  He  knew  all  that  is  to  be  felt  by 
an  ardent  nature. 

In  the  case  of  Margaret  in  Faust,  that  one  of 
the  most  powerful  of  the  productions  of  the  human 
intellect,  it  is  piteous  to  witness  how  soon  and  how 
far  one  heretofore  innocent  may  fall  when  tempted 
beyond  endurance  by  the  evil  spirit.  Mephistoph- 
eles,  who  at  first  is  represented  as  sufficiently 
reprobate  and  hideous,  has  already  grown,  by  the 
time  he  has  first  seen  this  poor  child  of  fifteen 
years,  to  feel  apparently  some  pity,  and  he  avows 
that  such  perfect  innocence  is  beyond  his  power  to 
corrupt.  To  Faust,  who  has  pointed  her  out  to 
him,  he  says : 

"  She  there?    She's  coming  from  confession, 
Of  every  sin  absolved;  for  I 
Behind  her  chair  was  listening  nigh. 
So  innocent  is  she,  indeed, 
That  to  confess  she  had  no  need. 
I  have  no  power  o'er  souls  so  green."* 

Yet  he  is  held  to  his  compact,  and,  to  satisfy  the 
eager  lover,  that  very  night  begins  the  attack  by 
placing  a  casket  of  jewels  on  a  press  in  the  child's 
chamber.  Preparing  herself  for  her  couch,  singing 
the  while  "There  was  a  king  in  Thule,"  and  notic- 

*  Scene  vii.,  Bayard  Taylor's  translation. 


192  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCKTHE. 

ing  the  casket,  it  appears  that  the  evil  one  has 
found  at  once  the  weakness  it  will  be  most  prom 
ising  to  assail.  After  adorning  herself  with  the 
jewels  and  getting  before  her  poor  mirror,  how 
mournful  these  words  which  she  utters: 

u  Were  but  the  ear-rings  mine  alone! 
One  has  at  once  another  air. 
What  helps  one's  beauty,  youthful  blood? 
One  may  possess  them — well  and  good; 
But  none  the  more  do  others  care. 
They  praise  us  half  in  pity,  sure: 

To  gold  still  tends, 

On  gold  depends, 
All,  all!     Alas,  we  poor!  »  * 

Never  was  a  tale  of  ruin  more  pitifully  told.  The 
pinching  of  the  \vants  of  a  poor  estate,  harsh  do 
mestic  rule,  notice,  attentions,  and  devotions  from 
a  young  man  handsome,  aristocratic,  courtly,  and 
wealthy;  then  native  innocence,  habitual  piety,  ab 
horrence  of  dishonor,  wickedness,  and  shame,  wail- 
ings,  and  prayers  before  and  after  her  fall — these 
fill  one's  heart  with  a  sympathy  that  brings  frequent 
tears  to  one's  eyes : 

"  My  peace  is  gone, 
My  he  art  is  sore; 
I  never  shall  find  it, 
Ah!  never  more. "f 

"Incline,  O  Maiden, 

Thou  sorrow-laden, 
Thy  gracious  countenance  upon  my  pain! 

*  Scene  xv.  •{•  Ib.,  scene  viii. 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  193 

The  sword  thy  heart  in, 
With  anguish  smarting, 
Thou  lookest  up  to  where  thy  Son  is  slain."  * 

That  by  her  spinning-wheel  at  home,  this  in  the 
donjon  cell  to  an  image  of  the  Mater  Dolorosa 
fixed  in  a  shrine  in  a  niche  of  the  wall.  Of  these 
lyrics  Bayard  Taylor  says:  "If  the  reverie  at  the 
spinning-wheel  be  a  sigh  of  longing,  this  is  a  cry 
for  help  equally  wonderful  in  words  and  metre,  yet 
with  a  character  equally  elusive  when  we  attempt 
to  reproduce  it  in  another  language."  The  slaying 
of  Margaret's  brother  Valentine  by  Faust,  the  un 
intentional  death  of  her  mother  produced  by  the 
daughter,  the  discovery  of  her  shame,  the  charge  of 
infanticide — when  these  have  brought  insanity,  we 
should  have  to  search  long  to  find  a  scene  so  heart 
rending  as  that  in  prison  the  night  before  her  exe 
cution,  when  the  seducer,  who  appears  to  be  more 
disconcerted  than  remorseful,  essays  her  rescue. 
When  she  has  recognized  him  at  last,  refusing  his 
persuasions,  though  without  reproach,  she  tells  him: 

*'  Now  I'll  tell  thee  the  graves  to  give  us. 
Thou  must  begin  to-morrow 

The  work  of  sorrow! 
The  best  place  give  to  my  mother, 
Then  close  at  her  side  my  brother, 

And  me  a.  little  away, 
But  not  too  very  far,  I  pray! 
And  here,  on  my  right  breast,  my  baby  lay! 
Nobody  else  will  lie  beside  me!"f 

*Scene  xviii.  f  Scene  xxv. 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  fJCK 


Now,  one  reading  this  poem  for  the  first  time 
might  suppose  that  this  miner  of  female  innocence 
Would  remain  and  share  her  fate,  or  live  to  be  con 
sumed  of  remorse  and  be  for  ever  lost.  Not  he. 
When  Mephistopheles,  at  the  dawning  of  the  day, 
cries  petulantly  and  threateningly  to  him:  "Come! 
or  I'll  leave  her  in  the  lurch  and  thee,"  not  another 
word  from  Faust  of  sympathy,  counsel  or  remon 
strance.  What  is  worse,  and  what  seems  incredi 
ble,  the  poet,  departing  from  the  legend,  leaves  us 
to  infer  that  he,  too,  like  the  poor  penitent  girl, 
has  escaped  the  perdition  of  the  soul.  The  Ger 
man  historian  before  quoted,  speaking  of  Goethe's 
habitual  compounding  with  vices,  even  those  the 
most  hideous  and  revolting,  writes  thus. 

"  Goethe  did  not  shrink  from  playing  this  part  even  into  the  next 
life.  His  Faust  was  meant  to  show  that  the  privilege  of  the  aristo 
cratic  voluptuary  extended  beyond  the  grave.  This,  F^aust  may 
offend  against  every  moral  feeling,  against  fidelity  and  honor;  he 
may  constantly  silence  the  voice  of  conscience,  neglect  every  duty, 
gratify  his  effeminate  love  of  pleasure,  his  vanity,  and  his  caprices, 
even  at  the  expense  and  the  ruin  of  others,  and  sell  himself  to  the 
very  devil;  he  goes  to  heaven  notwithstanding,  for  he  is  a  gentleman, 
he  is  of  the  privileged  class. 

In  his  youth  Goethe  had  paid  some  slight  respect 
if  not  to  religion,  at  least  to  the  regard  that  all 
communities  have  or  profess  to  have  for  morality 
and  decency.  But  by  the  times  wherein  Faust, 
2  he  Elective  Affinities  and  Wilhelm  Meister's  Ap 
prenticeship  were  produced  the  new  religion  that 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  195 

he  had  invented,  a  Neo-Platonism  founded  after 
long  studies  of  Paracelsus  and  Boer-haave,  had  de 
veloped  to  his  satisfaction;  and  the  founder  being 
leader  at  the  court  of  Weimar,  at  the  head  of  the 
literature  of  Germany,  having  watched  not  only 
without  pain  but  with  pleasure  the  growing  demor 
alization  among  all  ranks  of  his  countrymen, 
henceforth  his  lovers,  loving  whom  and  how  they 
may,  are  to  receive  no  punishment,  not  only  from 
the  municipal  laws  and  from  public  opinion,  but 
even  from  remorse  and  from  hell !  It  was,  indeed, 
a  humiliated  state  of  domestic  society  when  mar 
riages  "under  the  apron,"  as  they  were  called,  were 
common,  whereat  clergymen  were  required,  without 
much  urging  thereto  by  the  dukes  and  barons  on 
whom  they  depended,  to  take  in  wedlock  country 
girls  and  housemaids  whom ///<?>>  had  wearied  of.  In 
such  a  society  a  man  gifted,  rich,  powerful  may  do 
and  say  about  as  he  pleases,  and,  instead  of  losing, 
continue  to  gain  more  and  more  in  influence  upon 
opinions  and  habits.  Then  the  exquisite  pathos, 
the  delicate  tenderness,  the  marvellous  dramatic 
interest  of  many  portions  of  these  works,  inter 
spersed  often  with  lyrical  verses  of  almost  une 
qualled  excellence,  serve  to  lead  even  virtuous  and 
pious  minds  to  withhold  much  of  that  condemnation 
which  as  a  whole  they  deserve.  In  Wilhelm  Meis- 
tcr  the  old  harper  and  the  child  Mignon  cannot  but 


196  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GfKTHE. 

be  remembered  with  a  tender  sadness  that  it  is  grate 
ful  to  feel.  Let  us  notice  this  extract  from  book  ii. 
chapter  xi.,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  previous  play 
ing  and  singing  that  the  old  man  had  rendered 
before  Meister  and  his  motley  suite  of  women: 

"  The  old  harper  remained  silent;  his  fingers  wandered  carelessly 
among  the  chords  of  his  instrument;  finally  he  struck  them  more 
boldly  and  sang  as  follows: 

" '  What  sounds  are  those  which  from  the  wall 

And  o'er  the  bridge  I  hear? 
Those  strains  should  echo  through  this  hall, 

And  greet  a  monarch's  ear.' 
So  spake  the  king;  the  page  retires: 
His  answer  brought,  the  king  desires 

The  minstrel  to  appear. 

"  '  Hail,  sire!  and  hail,  each  gallant  knight! 

Fair  dames,  I  greet  ye  well! 
Like  heaven,  this  hall  with  stars  is  bright. 

But  who  your  names  may  tell? 
What  matchless  glories  round  me  shine! 
But  'tis  not  now  for  eyes  like  mine 

On  scenes  like  these  to  dwell.' 

"The  minstrel  raised  his  eyes  inspired, 

And  struck  a  thrilling  strain: 
Each  hero's  heart  is  quickly  fired, 

Each  fair  one  thrills  with  pain; 
The  king  enchanted  with  the  bard, 
His  magic  talent  to  reward, 

Presents  his  golden  chain. 

"  '  Oh!  deck  me  with  no  chain  of  gold; 

Such  gift  becomes  the  knight, 
Before  whose  warrior  eyes  so  bold 

The  rushing  squadrons  fight. 
Or  let  the  glittering  bauble  rest 
Upon  your  chancellor's  honored  breast — 

He'll  deem  the  burden  light. 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  197 


"  '  I  sing  but  as  the  young-  bird 
That  carols  in  the  tree; 

The  rapture  of  the  music  brings 
Its  own  reward  to  me. 

Yet  would  I  utter  one  request, 

That  of  your  wine  one  cup— the  best- 
Be  given  to-day  by  thee.' 

"The  cup  is  brought;  the  minstrel  quaffed. 

He  thrills  with  joy  divine. 
'  Thrice  happy  home,  where  such  a  draught 

Is  given,  and  none  repine! 
When  fortune  smiles,  then  think  of  me, 
And  thank  kind  Heaven,  as  I  thank  thee, 

For  such  a  cup  of  wine.'  " 

When  the  harper,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  song,  seized  a  goblet  of 
wine  that  stood  before  him,  and  turning  towards  his  benefactors^ 
quaffed  it  off  with  a  look  of  thankfulness,  a  shout  of  joy  rose  from 
the  whole  assembly." 

Touching  as  this  is,  the  one  following,  from  book 
iii.  chapter  i.,  is  more  so.  Mignon,  yet  a  child  in 
years,  though  now  grown  towards  womanhood  in 
heart  from  sorrow,  the  fruit  of  a  love  not  only  for 
bidden  but  revolting  in  its  kind,  had  been  spirited 
away  from  Italy,  her  native  country,  and  had  been 
made  to  promise,  amid  circumstances  most  impres 
sive  upon  her  sensitive  nature,  never  to  divulge  the 
fact  of  her  expulsion,  nor  the  place,  nor  even  the 
country,  of  her  birth.  The  softness  of  the  manners 
of  Meister  had  served  to  draw  her  affections  towards 
him,  and,  longing  ever  for  the  home  of  her  childhood 
she  hoped  that  this  young  man,  who  seemed  so  good, 
and  was  so  kind,  might  eventually  carry  her  there. 
But,  remembering  her  promise,  the  little  outcast 


198  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

could  only  strive  to  make  known  by  innuendo  the 
place  whither  she  yearned  to  go.  Taught  by  the 
master  of  a  troop  of  strolling  players  to  sing  and 
play  upon  the  cithern,  one  day  she  sang  before 
Meister  this  song: 

''Know'st  thou  the  land  where  the  lemon-tree  blows, 
Where  deep  in  the  bower  the  gold  orange  grows? 
\Vhere  zephyrs  from  Heaven  die  soltly  away, 
And  the  laurel  and  myrtle  tree  never  decay? 
Know'st  thou  it?     Thither,  oh!  thither  with  thee, 
My  dearest,  my  fondest!  with  thee  would  I  flee. 

"  Know'st  thou  the  hall  with  its  pillared  arcades, 
Its  chambers  So  vast  and  its  long  colonnades, 
Where  the  statutes  of  marble  with  features  so  mild 
Ask,  '  Why  have  they  used  thee  so  harshly  my  child?' 
Know'st  thou  it?     Thither,  oh!  thither  with  thee, 
My  dearest,  my  fondest!  with  thee  would  I  flee. 

"  Know'st  thou  the  Alp  which  the  vapor  enshrouds, 
Where  the  bold  muleteer  seeks  his  way  through  the  clouds? 
In  the  cleft  of  the  mountain  the  dragon  abides, 
And  the  rush  of  the  stream  tears  the  rock  from  its  sides. 
Know'st  thou  it?     Thither,  oh!  thither  with  thee, 
Leads  our  way,  father;  then  come,  let  us  flee. 

"She  commenced  each  verse  in  a  solemn,  measured  tone,  as  if  she 
had  intended  to  direct  attention  to  something  wonderful  and  had 
some  important  secret  to  communicate.  At  the  third  line  her  voice 
became  lower  and  fainter;  the  words  '  Know'st  thou  it?'  were  pro 
nounced  with  a  mysterious,  thoughtful  expression,  and  the  'Thith 
er,  oh!  thither'  was  uttered  with  an  irresistible  feeling  of  longing, 
and  at  every  repetition  of  the  words  'Let  us  flee!'  she  changed 
her  intonation.  At  one  time  she  seemed  to  entreat  and  to  implore, 
and  at  the  next  to  become  earnest  and  pursuasive.  After  having 
sung  the  song-  the  second  time  she  paused  for  a  moment,  and,  atten 
tively  surveying  Wilhelm,  she  asked  hin^  '  Know'st  thou  the  land?  ' 
'  It  must  be  Italy,' he  replied;  'but  where  did  you  learn  the  sweef 
little  song?'  'Italy!'  observed  Mignon  thoughtfully;  'if  you  are 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  199 

going  thither,  take  me  with  you.  1  am  too  cold  here.'  '  Have  you 
ever  been  there,  darling?'  asked  Wilhelm;  but  Mignon  made  no 
reply,  and  could  not  be  induced  to  converse  further." 

Now,  would  it  not  be  supposed  that  the  hero  of 
a  tale  in  which  there  are  such  as  these  was  one  of 
heroic  spirit  indeed,  fit  for  the  achievement  of 
heroic  action?  He  was  scholarly  as  he  was  conde 
scending  to  such  as  the  harper  and  Mignon. 
Among  other  things  in  that  line  he  has  studied 
what  one  might  style  the  sphynx  of  literature, 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  and  come  nearer  than  any 
other  critic  before  or  since,  in  interpreting  its  sub 
tle,  multifold  meanings.  On  the  contrary,  this 
Wilhelm  Meister,  for  any  manly  purpose,  was  not 
worth,  not  only  the  salt  he  ate,  but  the  air  he 
breathed.  He  had  been  created,  it  seemed,  merely 
to  show  with  what  unlicensed  liberty  a  young  man 
of  education  and  means  to  keep  himself  from  ser 
vile  work  might  disport  himself  with  any  pleasure 
to  whicn  his  selfish,  indolent  being  might  have  a 
fancy.  Then  in  Elective  Affinities,  as  if  to  put 
down  in  history  and  show  to  coming  generations 
how  lost  to  religious  obligation,  how  fallen  from 
common  decency,  was  that  in  which  he  lived, 
Gcethe  composed,  though  in  forms  most  singularly 
attractive,  a  history  of  loves  whose  equals,  every 
thing  considered,  in  sinfulness,  and  nastiness,  man 
kind  have  never  known,  at  least  in  books,  It  is 


200  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCPLTHE. 

simply  diabolical,  this  history  of  the  love  of  Ed 
ward  and  Ottilie  for  each  other,  and  that  between 
the  former's  wife  and  his  friend.  Surely  there  was 
no  belief  in  God  in  the  man  who,  at  the  death  of 
this  false  husband,  following  soon  after  that  of  her 
whom  he  foolishly,  forbiddenly  loved, whose  body  was 
so  placed  by  the  side  of  hers  that  no  other  could  be 
put  with  them  in  the  same  vault,  concludes  thus : 
"So  lie  the  lovers,  sleeping  side  by  side.  Peace 
hovers  above  their  resting  place. " 

Goethe  seemed  to  have  regarded  himself  as  the 
poet  for  the  aristocrat  and  the  voluptuary.  It  is 
strange  that  in  a  Christian  age  its  greatest  intellect 
should  have  so  outraged,  in  his  published  works,  the 
ideas  of  honor  and  religion;  stranger  that  such  out 
rages  should  have  been  commended  by  a  majority 
of  the  great,  the  titled,  the  wealthy,  and  the  culti 
vated  of  his  countrymen.  There  were,  and  are, 
those  who  suspect  that  Goethe  had  no  belief  in  God, 
or  at  least  none  in  a  fature  state  of  punishment 
and  reward.  At  all  events,  he  must  have  been 
among  those,  now  so  numerous,  who  regard  what 
Christians  call  the  Bible  as  a  book  of  man's  crea 
tion,  containing  fond  allegories  and  fables  in  the 
midst  of  narratives  fit  only  for  primers  of  school 
children  or  Sunday  evening  readings  of  ignorant 
aged  crones,  who  must  have,  and  ought  to  be  kindly 
afforded,  some  little  light,  genuine  or  spurious,  as 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  2OI 

they  are  about  to  immergeinto  the  "dark  valley  and 
the  shadow  of  death." 

Honor  and  patriotism  were  words  which  with 
Goethe  seemed  to  have  been  mere  sounds  signifying 
nothing.  As  for  honor  in  love,  wherein  that  noble 
sentiment  may  sometimes  be  made  to  pass  over  its 
most  trying  ordeal,  this  he  treated  with  undisguised 
contempt.  His  most  distinguished  and  interesting 
lovers  were  those  who  felt  and  indulged  dishonora 
ble  loves.  A  genuinely  honorable  love,  inspired  by 
that  tender,  faithful  sentiment  of  the  German  of  the 
foretime,  mutually  felt  between  one  honest  man  and 
one  honest  woman,  so  told  as  to  be  made  interes 
ting  to  readers,  is  not,  or  scarcely,  to  be  found  in  all 
of  Goethe's  works.  To  make  his  lovers  interesting 
he  seemed  to  have  believed  it  necessary  to  spice 
them  with  dishonor.  He  made  one  and  another  of 
his  heroes  false,  treacherous,  seeking  the  beloved 
object  mainly  because,  the  property  of  another,  he 
could  not  possess  her  without  risk  and  dishonor. 
Wifehood,  upon  which  the  blessing  of  Heaven 
might  be  confidently  invoked,  compared  with  love 
illicit  and  ever  new,  he  looked  at  as  a  dammed  and 
stagnant  pool  compared  with  the  first  gushings  of 
ever-fresh  waters  from  the  fountain  before  reaching 
the  channel  that  was  made  for  their  confined  and 
legitimate  course.  Never  had  been  such  a  time- 
server,  such  a  flatterer  of  his  own  age,  in  which, 


202  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

among  those  who  stood  in  the  very  lead  of  social 
existence,  there  was  no  love  worth  feeling  or  none 
worth  talking  about  except  such  as  was  forbidden 
of  God  and  man.  In  fine,  he,  the  grandest  intel 
lect  that  three  centuries  have  produced,  more  grossly 
and  recklessly  dishonored  the  best  traditions  of  his 
country  than  any  German  of  any  age.  He  gazed 
with  leering  eye,  and  chuckling  showed  to  the  eyes 
of  others  evil  as  his  own,  sights  from  which  his 
ancestor  of  two  thousand  years  before,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Danube,  the  Rhine,  or  the  Weser,  would  have 
turned  his  face  away  in  modesty  and  chaste  fear. 

Now,  what  was  the  secret  by  which,  in  the  treat 
ment  of  such  themes,  Gcethe  so  charmed  and  yet 
charms  so  many  of  mankind?  It  was  that  knowl 
edge  of  form  which  he  possessed  beyond  the  poets 
of  all  times.  It  may  have  been  partly  from  the 
consciousness  of  this  being  his  chief  power  that  he 
chose  to  set  it  off  with  the  bad,  the  trifling,  and  the 
contemptible  in  his  generation.  The  single  beau 
ties  in  his  works  are  the  greatest  in  their  kind,  and 
mankind,  in  admiration  of  them,  have  been  less 
disgusted  than  they  ought  to  have  been  with  the 
general  evil  tendencies  of  the  whole.  The  works 
of  Gcethe  are  more  remarkable  even  than  those  of 
the  great  artists  in  the  classic  age  in  this  respect: 
that  whereas  these  had  moulded  into  beauty  the  ex 
cellent  material  in  which  their  country  and  times 


THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE.  203 

abounded,  he  had  to  work  amid  the  gross  things 
which  he  found  for  his  plastic  hand  in  his  own  coun 
try  and  his  own  time.  He  was  not  the  seducer  of 
his  generation.  No  one  man  can  ever  be  that. 
The  age  was  already  corrupt.  A  noble  work  was 
before  him,  which  he  selfishly  neglected.  Instead 
of  lifting  his  age  out  of  the  slough  into  which  it 
had  fallen,  he  got  down  himself  into  this  slough  and 
took  a  vain,  wicked  pleasure  in  showing  to  his  be 
smirched  companions  into  what  fair  forms  these 
foul  elements  might  be  shaped,  fair  to  look  upon, 
but  frail,  perishable,  and  easily  resolvable  into  the 
things  out  of  which  they  had  been  taken.  He  toyed 
with  the  Romantic,  the  French,  the  English,  the 
Greek.  He  employed  each  and  all  when  they 
suited  his  fancy,  and  calmly,  coldly  dominated  in 
his  autocracy  even  down  to  the  last  of  extremest 
old  age.  Never  having  been  a  patriot,  among  the 
productions  of  his  last  endeavors  was  that  which 
seemed  as  if  intended  as  an  apology,  the  best  that 
he  could  devise,  for  the  want  of  fidelity  to  Germany 
during  the  period  of  her  humiliation.  When  she 
lay  prostrate  and  full  of  sorrow  before  Napoleon,  he 
had  sung  the  praises  of  the  conqueror.  In  after- 
times,  when  Germany  had  risen  to  its  native  man 
hood  and  had  been  numbered  among  the  powers 
of  Europe,  the  time-serving  poet  brought  out  his 
drama  of  "Epimenides. "  It  is  universally  admitted 


204  THE  AUDACITY  OF  GCETHE. 

to  be  his  very  feeblest  work,  and  that  because  it 
was  a  too  late  rendition  of  what  was  due  from  one 
who,  far  from  raising  his  hand  or  his  tongue  in  the 
times  of  sorest  need,  had  fawned  and  cringed  be 
fore  him,  who  had  been  the  chief  occasion  of  her 
longest,  most  sorrowful  wailing,  and  therefore  was 
now  the  very  last  man  in  Germany  to  be  called  up 
on  to  sing  or  pretend  to  rejoice  in  her  deliverance. 

Here  was  indeed  a  giant — a  giant,  however,  not 
after  the  type  of  Christopher,  the  bold  ferryman, 
sure  reliance  of  timid  travellers  in  stormy  weather. 
To  bear  the  disguised  Infant  over  swollen  waters 
was  not  after  his  liking.  He  was  rather  a  Goliath 
of  Gath,  "a  man  of  war  from  his  youth,"  that  defied 
the  armies  led  by  the  Most  High,  not  foreseeing  the 
fall  to  which  he  was  doomed.  The  men  and  women 
of  his  generation  lauded  him  for  his  strength  and  his 
audacity,  and  there  be  many  yet,  who,  charmed  by 
the  witchery  of  his  words,  are  led  into  places  which 
all  benignant  spirits  would  warn  them  to  avoid. 
Than  Goethe  never  has  lived  a  man  who  employed 
his  gifts  less  faithfully  for  the  ends  for  which  they 
were  bestowed. 


KING  HENRY  VIII. 


SALUTARY  are  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from 
studies  of  the  conflicts  between  the  English 
people  and  their  kings.  Looking  upon  the  serene, 
benignant  rule  of  Victoria,  strange  indeed  seem 
the  multitude  of  these  conflicts,  their  duration,  and 
their  varying  results  throughout  the  centuries  ante 
rior  to  the  ascertainment  of  British  liberty.  In 
this  article,  we  propose  to  notice  briefly  some  of 
those  which  took  place  in  the  reign  of  one  who, 
in  some  respects,  was  the  most  notable  of  all.  He 
was  born  in  a  time  favorable  for  the  growth  of  the 
mind  of  a  prince  in  the  knowledge  of  the  just  pur 
poses  of  empire.  The  second  son  of  Henry  the 
Seventh,  and  thus,  at  first,  without  prospect  of  in 
heriting  the  crown,  his  boyhood  was  spent  in  learn 
ing  the  principles  of  literature,  music,  and  religion; 
and  it  was  intended  and  foretold  that  in  time  he 
would  occupy  the  See  of  Canterbury.  His  elder 
brother  had  been  married  to  a  princess  who,  in 
wealth  and  family  renown,  was  the  most  brilliant 
match  to  be  made  in  Europe.  The  death  of  Arthur 

and  his  becoming  heir  apparent,  did  not  seem  to 
205 


2o6  RING  HENRY  VIII. 

cast  even  a  shade  upon  the  fair  promise  of  his 
youth,  nor  hinder  the  pursuit  of  his  peaceful  studies. 
When,  at  eighteen  years  of  age,  he  was  called  to  the 
throne,  the  culture  of  his  understanding,  the  beauty 
of  his  person,  and  the  sweetness  of  his  manners, 
led  all  men  to  expect  a  blessed  rule.  His  father 
had  not  well  employed  his  own  opportunities.  He 
was  yet  too  fresh  from  the  thirty  years'  conflict  of 
the  Roses,  too  long  imbued  with  the  partisanism  of 
the  Lancasters,  to  be  an  entirely  just  sovereign,  un 
less  he  had  been  a  great  and  a  good  man.  He  was 
neither.  He  came  to  the  throne  when  the  nation, 
having  lost  the  best  part  of  its  nobility  and  gentry, 
so  longed  for  peace  that  they  gladly  postponed  the 
superior  claims  of  the  House  of  York  to  the  acci 
dent  of  Bosvvorth  Field.  The  king's  hereditary 
hatred  for  that  family  instead  of  being  appeased  by 
their  fall,  took  on  that  deeper  malignity  which 
comes  always  with  the  end  of  warfare  to  mean- 
spirited  conquerors.  To  silence  their  claims,  right 
eous,  both  in  the  light  of  reason,  and  the  loving 
memories  of  Edward  IV,  he  married  the  young 
princess,  Elizabeth,  whom,  although  a  model  of  vir 
tue  and  conjugal  fidelity,  he  hated  and  maltreated, 
both  because  she  was  a  York  and  because  she 
was  beloved  by  the  people  who  rejoiced  at  her 
coronation. 

But  Henry  VII  had  sagacity  enough  to  discover 


kiNG    HENRY    VIH.  2O7 

what  exactions  might  be  laid  upon  a  people  ex 
hausted  by  wars.  The  men  who  were  old  enough 
to  remember  the  Plantagenets  grew  sad  to  feel  that 
they  had  been  looking  in  vain  for  the  return  of  the 
rule  which  a  foreign  historian,  in  admiration  of  par 
liamentary  influence,  had  described  as  "among  all 
the  world's  lordships,  that  where  the  public  weal  is 
best  ordered,  and  where  least  violence  reigns  over 
the  people."  A  Lancasterian  faction  helped  to 
stretch  every  prerogative  to  the  last  possible  limit, 
with  no  regard  to  that  parliament  without  whose  co 
operation,  in  the  olden  times,  no  great  business  of 
peace  or  war  was  wont  to  be  undertaken. 

It  suits  not  the  scope  of  this  article  to  speak  of 
the  adroitness  with  which  he  succeeded  in  his  usur 
pations,  and  of  the  oppressions  which,  mainly  to 
gratify  his  avarice,  he  inflicted  upon  his  people. 
The  security  of  his  foreign  connections,  closely  al 
lied  as  he  was  with  Scotland  and  Spain,  aided  by 
the  national  dread  of  more  domestic  bloodshed, 
enabled  him  to  make  himself  the  most  arbitrary 
monarch  that  had  ever  sat  upon  the  English  throne. 
In  his  dying  hours,  the  remorse  which,  not  always, 
but  most  often,  comes  to  evil-doers,  beset  him  sorely, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  exactions  which  his  ava 
ricious  soul  could  not  yet  altogether  repress,  he  dis 
tributed  alms,  founded  religious  houses,  announced 
his  desire  that  the  wrongs  which  he  had  perpetrated 


208  KING    HENRY    VIII. 

might  be  redressed  by  his  successor,  implored  him 
not  to  consummate  the  espousal  he  had  contracted 
with  his  brother's  widow,  and  then  closed,  by  death, 
his  eventful  reign. 

The  new  king  ascended  to  his  place  with  brilliant 
prestige.  Though  the  son  of  Henry  of  Lancaster, 
he  was  also  the  son  of  Elizabeth  of  York.  His  de 
votion  hitherto  to  mild  and  refining  arts,  his  bloom 
ing  youth,  and  gracious  carriage  attracted  all  hearts. 
When,  in  disregard  of  his  dying  father's  injunctions, 
he  married  Katharine,  Princess  of  Wales,  it  was 
mostly  because  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  no  fade 
had  yet  come  to  the  cheek  of  the  lovely  daughter  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  There  were  a  few  to  shake 
their  heads  and  murmur  in  secret  at  this  connection; 
but  the  conscience  of  the  bridegroom  was  without 
a  shadow.  Marriage  bells  never  rang  merrier.  On 
the  throne,  with  a  queen  by  his  side,  he  gave  up 
the  habits  of  a  student  in  which  he  had  been  hith 
erto  mostly  employed.  Yet  he  seemed  disposed,  in 
the  exuberance  of  youth  and  felicity,  not  to  burthen 
himself  with  the  cares  of  empire,  and,  with  a  gener 
ous  hand,  he  lavished  the  treasures  that,  for  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century,  his  father  had  been  hoarding. 
Fox,  his  aged  treasurer,  grew  solemn  and  scolded 
his  prodigality,  and  brought  in  Thomas  Wolsey  to 
assist  in  controlling  it.  Men  and  women  shed 
tears  of  joy  and  gratitude  at  the  proclamation  to 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  209 

all  who  had  suffered  from  the  extortions  of  his 
father's  favorites,  inviting  their  complaints.  The 
pillory,  the  prison,  and  ultimately  death,  were  their 
punishment.  It  was  noticeable,  however,  that  in 
the  case  of  Empson  and  Dudley,  the  great  ones  on 
this  list,  most  infamous  of  all  pairs  of  names  to  be 
found  among  the  instruments  of  tyrants,  these,  be 
cause  they  had  acted  notoriously  by  the  permission 
and  commands  of  the  late  king,  were  given  over  to 
the  hangmen,  not  for  their  extortions,  but  upon  an 
impossible  and  absurd  charge  of  conspiracy  against 
himself.  The  people,  hungry  for  their  blood,  blessed 
the  monarch  who  allowed  them  to  shed  it,  without 
inquiring  into  the  reasons,  which,  if  they  had  under 
stood,  would  have  made  them  tremble  for  themselves 
and  their  children. 

But  that  the  limited  length  of  this  article  forbids, 
we  should  like  to  consider  Henry's  foreign  policy, 
at  first  so  apparently  generous,  afterwards  so' wholly 
selfish.  But  we  are  thinking  of  him  now  mainly  as 
an  individual  among  the  kings  of  England.  His 
individual  kingship  speedily  grew  into  the  boldest 
relief.  The  Plantagenets,  thinking  of  their  people 
along  with  themselves,  had  suffered  their  separate 
individualities  to  become  merged  into  theirs.  Hen 
ry  VIII  soon  learned  to  regard  himself  as  the  imper 
sonation  of  the  English  State;  and  he  had  not  been 
wearing  the  crown  but  for  a  brief  period  before  it 


210  KING    HENRY    VITI. 

was  found  that,  withal  so  frank,  so  gracious,  so  gay, 
he  had  inherited  the  tastes  and  ambitions  of  the 
most  imperious  of  both  lines  of  his  ancestors,  and 
that  in  the  craft  of  employing  and  controlling  men 
and  circumstances,  he  was  superior  to  them  all. 

We  spoke  of  the  use  which  Fox  had  intended  to 
be  made  of  Wolsey  when  the  latter  was  invested 
with  partial  power.  At  this  late  day,  it  is  curious 
to  reflect  how  adroitly  the  young  monarch  employed 
the  transcendant  talents  of  this  man  as  long  as  they 
were  needful  for  his  purposes,  and  when  these  were 
accomplished,  how  easily  and  ruthlessly  they  were 
flung  aside.  The  career  of  Wolsey  was  so  magnifi 
cent  that  it  is  useless  to  look  for  its  parallel  in 
courts.  "THE  KING  AND  I."  How  fond  had  he 
been  to  write  those  words!  How  gracious  his 
majesty  to  allow  it !  How  serious  the  warnings 
from  the  older  councillors  against  the  consequences 
of  such  presumption  in  a  subject.  Gifted  with 
powers  of  a  Roman  legate,  the  great  churchman 
did  not,  but  the  king  did  foresee  that  such  an  office 
in  the  hands  of  a  servile  subject  would  contribute 
to  place  the  monarch  above  all  human  control  and 
expose  the  subject  more  easily  to  his  own  ruin. 
With  all  his  talents  and  sagacity,  Wolsey  did  not 
know  all  the  audacity  in  the  temper  of  his  master. 
The  man  of  God  had  long  ceased  to  prefer  divine 
worship  to  the  human;  and,  perhaps,  his  fondest 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  211 

thoughts,  even  at  the  altar,  were  in  looking  upon 
the  bowing  and  kneeling  forms  of  the  highest  no 
bles  of  the  land,  who  served  in  his  ministrations. 
Yet,  if  he  had  studied  this  human  master  better,  he 
might  have  avoided  the  ruin  that  had  already  been 
projected  in  the  secret  chambers  of  the  palace. 
But  for  our  repeated  observation  of  the  apparently 
trivial  means  by  which  Infinite  Justice  sometimes 
accomplishes  its  purposes,  we  should  wonder  at  the 
surprise  when,  after  the  disgust  with  Katharine, 
which,  in  his  exalted  priestly  office,  he  had  not  dis 
couraged,  instead  of  a  European  princess,  Anne 
Boleyn,  a  maid  of  the  bed-chamber,  was  the  one 
chosen  to  be  exalted  to  the  throne.  His  ill-con 
cealed  contempt  cost  all  he  had  won.  To  this  day, 
it  is  curious  to  consider  how  easily  he  was  ruined: 
the  mockery  of  reluctance  with  which  the  king 
parted  from  him;  the  playfulness  with  which,  as 
sometimes  a  wild  beast  does  with  his  victim,  he 
alternated  between  clemency  and  severity,  and,  in 
stead  of  giving  him  over  to  the  headsman,  suffer 
ing  him  to  languish  in  unwholesome  places,  as  his 
queen  was  destined  to  do  afterwards,  and  die  with 
a  heart  broken  by  failure  and  remorse.  They  are 
the  saddest  words  ever  uttered  by  one  who  had  fal 
len  from  so  exalted  an  office:  "If  I  had  served  my 
God  with  half  the  zeal  I  served  my  prince,  he 
would  not  have  left  me  in  mine  old  age."  "Mv 


212  KING    HENRY    VIII. 

PRINCE!"  This  was  his  service;  a  service  which 
while  it  could  not  save  himself  from  ruin,  put 
back  British  liberty  a  hundred  years.  The  an 
guish  of  the  dying  parasite  was  not  so  much  that 
he  had  postponed  the  service  of  his  country  to  that 
of  God,  as  it  was,  that,  he  had  magnified  his  prince 
above  country  and  above  God.  Commiserate  his 
grief  as  we  may,  we  could  wish,  especially  for  the 
sake  of  literature,  which  he  encouraged,  that  it  had 
been  less  abject;  that,  in  the  first  disappointment, 
he  had  given  himself  like  Bacon  afterwards,  to 
studies  fitted  to  his  genius.  In  the  intervals  of 
hope  he  projected  the  employment  of  yet  greater 
servilities.  In  those  of  despair,  he  must  have 
shuddered  to  remember  how  he  had  contributed,  by 
failing  to  consult  Parliament,  to  destroy  the  influ 
ence  of  what,  to  his  ancestors,  had  been  the  source 
of  their  loftiest  pride.  The  oppressions  and  exac 
tions  that  were  already  overtopping  those  of  the 
preceding  reign  were  committed  with  greater  im 
punity,  because  this  bulwark  of  national  liberty 
ceased  to  be  summoned,  and  what  courage  and 
patriotism  were  yet  in  the  land  had  thus  no  oppor 
tunities  to  coalesce  for  organized  resistance.  "The 
king  and  I"  became  the  State.  At  the  bidding  of 
an  adulterous  woman,  the  first  turned  his  eye  from 
the  second,  and  those  who  had  waited  for  the  op 
portunity  set  upon  him  in  full  cry.  Crafty  as  cruel. 


KING    HENRY   VIII.  213 

the  king,  as  in  the  case  of  Empson  and  Dudley, 
saw  to  it  that  he  should  fall  upon  an  unjust  imputa 
tion,  of  having  exercised  legatine  power  in  deroga 
tion  of  the  rights  of  the  prince  whose  service  he 
acknowledged,  on  his  dying  bed,  that  he  had  preferred 
to  that  of  God. 

Henry  had  now  been  upon  the  throne  twen 
ty-one  years.  His  character  had  taken  on  the 
hardness  which  unbridled  indulgence  could  impart. 
With  all  the  subserviency  of  Wolsey,  he  had  a  mo 
dicum  of  conscience  and  delicacy.  Out  of  appre 
hension  of  what  parliament  might  do  if  summoned, 
he  had  forborne  to  summon  it.  What  was  wanted 
now,  was  a  minister  Avho  would  summon  a  par- 
liment,  but  for  no  purpose  except  to  demor 
alize,  corrupt,  overawe  and  destroy  it.  Such  a 
minister  was  already  at  hand.  Thomas  Crom 
well,  son  of  a  Putney  blacksmith,  who  had  been 
an  adventurer  in  many  lands,  an  acknowledged 
ruffian  in  the  Italian  wars,  yet  a  student  and  admi 
rer  of  Machiavelli,  was  the  last  to  forsake  Wolsey, 
in  whose  service  he  had  lived.  Shakespeare,  it  will 
be  remembered,  represents  the  dying  cardinal  charg 
ing  his  follower  to  fling  away  ambition,  and  thus 
avoid  the  shoals  on  which  he  had  been  wrecked. 
In  the  courage  with  which  he  pleaded  for  his  mas 
ter,  men  of  all  parties  spoke  of  him  as  "the  most 
faithfullest  servant."  But  among  the  words  of  this 


214  KING    HENRY   VIIL 

pleading  were  inserted  others  in  private  that  fell 
upon  the  ear  of  the  king  more  gratefully  than  any 
that  had  ever  been  uttered  by  human  lips.  It  was 
he  who,  having  first  obtained  the  commutation  of 
Wolsey's  punishment  to  the  penalty  of  pramunire 
for  the  exercise  of  Roman  legatine  powder,  afterwards 
suggested  to  the  despot  that  the  most  effectual  way 
in  which  to  settle  the  matter  of  the  divorce  with 
the  queen,  was  to  stand  upon  his  royal  supremacy, 
and  cut,  with  the  sword  of  Alexander,  the  knot  that 
others  were  incompetent  or  reluctant  to  untie. 
This  proposal,  so  audacious,  lifted  the  blacksmith's 
son  to  the  acme  of  his  sovereign's  regard.  It  was 
too  audacious  to  be  yet  practicable.  The  principles 
of  the  Reformation  had  come  into  England,  and 
were  growing,  but  this  king  was  especially  odious 
to  the  German  Protestants  because  of  his  hostility 
to  Luther,  and  they  were  a  unit  on  the  side  of 
Queen  Katharine.  He  would  have  resorted  to  it 
as  it  was,  but  that  he  foresaw  that  he  could  corrupt 
the  universities,  and  what  was  of  far  greater  signifi 
cance,  because  the  whole  people  of  England,  cleri 
cal  and  lay,  found,  to  their  horror,  that  in  submit 
ting  to  the  legatine  power,  for  the  exercise  of  which 
within  the  realm,  Wolsey  had  suffered,  they  were 
partners  of  his  guilt,  and  liable  to  all  the  penalties 
cf  treason.  The  universal  terror  in  this  conjuncture 
was  alleviated  after  some  delay  of  the  king  and  his 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  215 

minister  by  a  free  pardon  of  the  people — who  were 
graciously  presumed  not  to  have  known  all  the 
enormity  of  the  crime — and  a  promise  of  pardon  to 
the  clergy  upon  the  payment  of  heavy  fines,  and  an 
acknowledgment  in  convocation  of  the  king  to  be 
"protector  and  only  supreme  head  of  the  clergy  and 
church  of  England." 

The  events  that  followed  the  exaltation  of  Crom 
well  constitute  what  is  the  most  thrilling  part  of  the 
history  of  modern  times.  What  these  two  men 
perpetrated  have  no  parallel.  Their  very  shame- 
lessness  was  not  less  enormous  than  in  the  days  of 
the  worst  Caesars.  The  repairing  of  Anne  Boleyn 
to  the  palace  while  the  divorce  was  pending,  the 
expulsion  of  the  queen  to  the  sickly  atmosphere  of 
Buckden  in  the  hope  that  she  might  die  there,  the 
denial  to  her  of  the  sight  of  her  child,  the  flouting 
gayety  upon  her  loneliness  and  despair,  cried  aloud 
for  the  vengeance  which  it  was  strange  they  could 
not  foresee.  Such  as  these  are  credible;  for  all 
times  have  instanced  what  the  unlawful  loves  of  men 
and  women  may  perpetrate.  Credible  also  was  the 
faithful  courage  of  More,  Fisher,  and  a  few  others 
who  died  for  their  opinions,  for  such  examples  be 
long  to  all  ages  of  despotism.  But  what  is  almost 
incredible  is  the  persistent  application  by  this  low 
born  minister  of  systematic 'measures  for  the  over 
throw  of  justice  and  liberty,  religion  and  honor. 


2l6  KING    HENRY    VIII. 

Among  those  who,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  have 
bowed  before  tyrants,  there  is  nowhere  to  be  found 
language  so  contemptibly  mean,  so  abjectly  unmanly 
as  that  with  which  the  leading  men  of  those  times 
yielded,  submitted,  begged  and  implored.  Those 
bishops  consented  to  the  first  demand  of  Cromwell, 
almost  with  a  smile,  as  if  it  were  a  pleasant  joke  of 
the  king's.  It  grew  serious  when  the  demand  came 
to  convocation  for  the  right  of  nomination,  by  the 
king,  of  all  bishops  henceforth.  On  the  final  sep 
aration  from  Rome,  every  clergyman  in  England 
was  required,  on  a  named  day,  to  proclaim  Henry 
VIII  as  supreme  head  of  the  Church.  The  words 
of  the  summons  were  handed  to  the  sheriffs,  who 
copied  them  for  the  bishops,  and  they,  sheriffs  and 
bishops,  were  required  to  see  that  the  requisition  was 
obeyed  without  exception.  There  was  a  profounder 
depth  yet  for  this  servile  priesthood.  Though 
prostrate  upon  their  knees,  they,  such  as  were  not 
afraid  to  die,  had  not  yet  been  made  to  place  their 
mouths  upon  the  ground,  and  kiss,  and  bite,  and 
feed  upon  the  dirt.  When  Henry  separated  from 
Rome,  the  Protestant  spirit  of  the  nation  looked 
forward  to  independence  of  private  judgment.  They 
did  not  yet  understand  the  compass  of  his  imper- 
iousness.  This  was  to  culminate  in  his  demand, 
as  head  of  the  church,  to  dictate  the  whole  religious 
faith  of  the  nation.  Although  it  is  now  three  him- 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  2  I  7 

dred  and  fifty  years  since  this  compliance  was 
accorded  in  convocation,  we  cannot  recall  without 
shame  the  grossness  of  the  flattery  bestowed  upon 
the  minion  by  whose  counsels  it  had  been  enslaved. 
"The  vicar-general  of  England!  He  is  worthy  to 
be  the  vicar-general  of  the  universe!" 

The  prostitution  to  which  Cromwell  subjected  the 
bishops  in  convocation  was  inflicted  upon  parlia 
ment  and  upon  the  courts  of  justice.  Parliament 
was  summoned  only  to  ratify  the  acts  of  personal 
government,  to  extend  the  royal  prerogative,  to 
create  new  statutes  and  bills  of  attainder  for  the 
more  easy,  rapid  and  condign  punishment  of  real 
and  imaginary  offenders,  and,  as  if  to  show  to  the 
whole  world,  as  well  the  English  people  as  Europe 
ans,  that  this  ancient  institution,  which  foreign 
publicists  had  lauded  so  highly,  was  powerless  hence 
forth  for  any  of  the  benign  purposes  of  its  origin. 
Cromwell  had  gathered  into  his  hands  the  whole 
administration  of  the  state,  foreign  and  domestic, 
political,  judicial  and  religious.  Unlike  his  prede 
cessor,  free  from  the  love  of  ostentation  and  wealth, 
the  enormous  sums  which  he  extorted  were  divided 
among  the  spies  who  were  scattered  throughout  the 
land,  and  he  calmly  looked  on  as  he  saw  every  sub 
ject  of  the  realm  in  terror  of  his'name.  There  was  but 
one  prominent  man  in  England  who  did  not  pray  for 
his  fall,  and  that  was  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 


2l8  KING    HENRY    VIII. 

We  have  not  time  to  speak  of  the  destruction  of 
religious  houses  and  the  creation  from  their  spoils 
of  those  new  families,  the  Russels,  the  Cavendishes, 
the  Fitzwilliamses,  and  their  likes.  Nor  can  we 
linger  with  the  continued  persecution  of  the  queen 
to  her  grave,  the  careers  of  Anne  Boleyn,  Jane  Sey 
mour  and  Katharine  Howard,  except  to  say  in 
passing,  that  in  going  from  one  to  another  of  these 
loves,  his  conduct  was  like  that  of  a  beast  rather 
than  of  a  lover  and  husband,  licensed  by  the  laws 
jof  God,  and  the  unwritten  laws  of  gentlemen  in  the 
humblest  degree.  Whether  the  charge  against  Anne 
Boleyn  was  satisfactorily  maintained  is  yet  in  dis 
pute.  But  it  is  certain  that  her  husband  did  not 
pretend  to  suspect  her  until  the  charms  that  had 
seduced  him  had  faded,  and  his  evil  eye  had  fallen 
upon  the  fair  and  fresh  Jane  Seymour.  The  noble 
anger  of  an  outraged  husband  for  the  greatest  grief 
that  a  man  of  honor  can  suffer  he  never  had  felt. 
With  his  huntsmen  and  hounds  he  waited  in  Epping 
Forest  for  the  sound  of  the  cannon  which  an 
nounced  her  execution,  and  then,  with  horn  and 
halloo,  he  dashed  across  the  country  to  Wolf  Hall, 
in  Wiltshire,  where  Jane  Seymour,  in  the  midst  of 
her  maidens,  her  flowers  and  gorgeous  vestments, 
awaited  the  bridal  of  to-morrow.  He  was  not  ag 
grieved,  as  husband,  at  the  irregularities  of  Katha 
rine  Howard.  As  an  imperious  monarch  he  pun- 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  2IQ 

ished  them  with  death,  and  then  waited  for  her 
whom  Cromwell  had  provided,  and  whom,  misled  by 
the  pictures  of  Holbein,  he  believed  to  be  beautiful. 

Here  was  the  rock  on  which  the  infamous  Crom 
well  was  ruined.  When  the  king,  though  now  grow 
ing  old  and  bloated  with  excesses,  looked  upon 
Anne  of  Cleves,  the  new  bride  who  had  been  pro 
vided,  he  cried  in  his  wrath:  "You  have  brought 
me  a  great  Flanders  mare."  This  was  enough. 
Once  more  he  turned  his  eye  away  from  his  minis 
ter  and  let  the  dogs  tear  him  in  pieces.  In  vain 
Cranmer  reminded  the  king  that  Cromwell  had 
loved  him  "not  less  than  he  loved  God,"  an  assur 
ance  deemed  of  great  value  by  him  who,  in  defer 
ence  to  the  royal  mandate,  in  exchange  for  Lambeth 
palace,  had  given  up  his  wife  and  children  and  sent 
them  to  their  kindred  in  a  foreign  land.  But  it  was 
of  no  avail.  Cromwell  heretofore  had  wrested  from 
parliament  that  most  odious  of  all  enactments,  at 
tainder  without  summons  and  without  evidence,  a 
curious  instance  of  retribution,  when  himself  was 
the  first  and  the  only  one  to  suffer  from  its  enforce 
ment.  It  was  like  the  fate  of  him  whom  old  tra 
dition  made  the  inventor  of  the  brazen  bull,  thought 
the  most  horrible  of  the  punishments  of  ancient 
despotism,  and  who,  in  accordance  with  a  caprice 
of  the  tyrant  to  whom  it  was  presented,  was  sub 
jected  first  to  its  awful  ordeal. 


220  <  KING  HENRY  VIII. 

The  last  years  of  Henry  VIII  are  interesting 
mainly  for  the  evidences  of  that  strange  impunity 
with  which,  even  when  prostrated  in  physical  in 
firmities  he  persisted  in  his  enormities.  Katharine 
Parr  escaped  the  fate  of  her  predecessors  only  by  a 
felicitous  compliment  which  a  timely  hint  enabled 
her  to  make,  and  by  concealing,  with  womanly  in 
stinct,  her  disgust  in  beholding  and  tending  the 
loathsome  diseases  that  were  hurrying  him  to  the 
grave.  The  cruelties  he  practiced  on  those  who 
would  not  accept  all  of  his  Six  Articles,  his  burning 
the  Anabaptists  for  rejecting  the  Real  Presence, 
these  and  numberless  similar,  were  submitted  to 
without  audible  complaint  to  the  end.  The  very 
last  act  of  his  reign  was  the  attempt  to  destroy  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  mightiest  lord  of  the  realm. 
Even  when  death  was  upon  him,  the  commons 
passed  his  demand  for  hastening  the  execution,  and 
the  very  next  morning  the  victim's  head  would  have 
fallen,  but  that,  in  the  hours  of  the  night,  the  royal 
murderer  had  met  his  own  doom,  and  the  lieuten 
ant  of  the  tower  laid  aside  his  axe. 

The  history  of  mankind  affords  no  similar  exam 
ple  of  security  in  the  life  of  a  tyrant  continuing 
undisturbed  to  the  close  of  his  rule.  Around  his 
dying  bed  not  a  single  witness  dared,  until  the  very 
last,  to  warn  him  of  his  approaching  death.  It 
came  upon  him  in  the  midst  of  his  worst  thoughts, 


KING    HENRY    VIII.  221 


and  was  the  only  enemy  against  whom  he  had  not 
been  able  to  prevail. 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS 


T^HE  friendships  among  mankind  are  themes  for 
*  frequent  thoughtful  speculation.  The  needs  and 
obligations  of  other  relations  in  this  life  are  of 
sufficiently  easy  understanding  and  exposition.  It 
is  not  so  with  friendships.  The  subtlety  of  their 
essence,  the  absence  of  regularity  in  their  formation, 
the  varieties  among  the  strains  which  they  will  en 
dure,  have  seemed  ever  to  hinder  their  reduction  to 
ascertained  terms.  Husbands  and  wives,  parents 
and  children,  brothers,  sisters,  and  other  kindred, 
colleagues  in  whatever  department  of  endeavor, 
magistrate  and  private  citizen,  clergy  and  laity  —  all 
know  well  what  these  owe  among  one  another. 
But  who  shall  say  the  same  of  friends?  The  poet 
and  the  philosophers  have  said  some  beautiful 
things  and  some  contemptuous,  and  all  maintain 
that  perfect  friendships  are  most  rare.  "Ramm 
genus!"  exclaimed  Cicero.  Said  Lilly  in  Endymi- 
011: 

u  Friendship!  of  all  things  the 
Most  rare,  and  therefore  most  rare  because  most 
Excellent." 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS.        223 

So  nigh  is  friendship  akin  to  love  that  the  Greeks, 
and  after  them  the  Romans,  gave  to  it  a  name  de 
rived  from  that  dear  word.  English-speaking  people 
have  done  differently,  but  neither  can  they,  any 
more  than  could  the  ancients,  define  the  boundary 
between  the  two. 

There  is  something  quite  interesting  in  reflections 
upon  the  few  friendships  among  eminent  persons 
that  have  been  handed  down  through  the  literatures 
of  the  ages.  Curious  illustrations  some  of  them 
are.  Take  that  of  Orestes  and  Pylades,  exhibited  by 
their  becoming  principal  and  accessory  to  the  mur 
der  of  the  mother  of  the  one  and  the  aunt  of  the  other, 
the  accessory  rewarded  for  his  part  with  the  hand  of 
another  parricide,  Electra,  the  tale  of  whose  suffer 
ings  makes  up  one  of  the  greatest  essays  of  the 
tragic  muse. 

Then  Theseus  and  Pirithous.  The  history  of  the 
friendship  of  these  two  heroes  affords  somewhat  of 
humor,  grim  though  it  be.  Plutarch,  after  an  account 
of  the  help  rendered  by  the  former  to  Adrastus  of 
Thebes,  thus  proceeds: 

"The  friendship  of  Theseus  and  Pirithous  is  said  to  have  com 
menced  on  this  occasion.  Theseus  being  much  celebrated  for  his 
strength  and  valor,  Pirithous  was  desirous  to  prove  it,  and  therefore 
drove  away  his  oxen  from  Marathon.  When  he  heard  that  Theseus 
pursued  him  in  arms  he  did  not  fly,  but  turned  back  to  meet  him.  But 
as  soon  as  they  beheld  one  another  each  was  so  struck  with  admira 
tion  of  the  other's  person  and  courage  that  they  laid  aside  all  thoughts 
of  fighting;  and  Pirithous,  first  giving  Theseus  his  hand,  bade  him 


224       CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

be  judge  in  this  cause  himself,  and  he  would  willingly  abide  by  his 
sentence.  Theseus  in  his  turn  left  the  cause  to  him  and  desired  him 
to  be  his  friend  and  fellow-warrior.  Then  they  confirmed  their 
friendship  with  an  oath." 

This  reminds  us  somewhat  of  the  inception  of  the 
alliance  between  Robin  Hood  and  Little  John  after 
the  scuffle  on  the  log  that  lay  across  the  stream. 
The  historian  does  not  record  whether  or  not  the 
oxen  were  restored,  but  we  conclude  that  perhaps 
the  robbery  was  treated  as  a  harmless  practical  joke 
and  that  both  were  thankful  for  the  happy  results  to 
which  it  had  led. 

We  are  not  informed  as  to  the  age  of  the  king  of  the 
Lapithae  at  the  beginning  of  the  confederate  achieve 
ments  of  these  distinguished  cronies;  but  Theseus 
was  fifty  years  old,  and  seemed  to  have  lost  no  part 
of  the  ardor  which  had  been  wont  to  impel  him  to 
the  obtaining  of  wives  by  conquest  and  rape,  al 
though  foreseeing  that  he  must  wait  some  years 
longer  for  the  fruition  of  his  next  endeavor.  His 
comrade  also,  whatever  may  have  been  the  number 
of  his  years  and  of  his  wives,  was  equally  impressed 
by  the  infantile  beauty  that  had  captivated  the 
veteran  lover.  Let  us  hear  Plutarch  again : 

u  The  two  friends  went  together  to  Sparta,  and,  having  seen  the 
girl  (Helen,  then  nine  years  old)  dancing  in  the  temple  of  Diana 
Orthia,  carried  her  off  and  fled.  The  pursuers  that  were  sent  after 
them  following  no  further  than  Tegea,  they  thought  themselves  se 
cure,  and,  having  traversed  Peloponnesus,  they  entered  into  an  agree 
ment  that  he  who  should  gain  Helen  by  lot  should  have  her  to  wife, 
but  be  obliged  to  assist  in  providing  a  wife  for  the  other.  In  consc- 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS.        225 

quencc  of  these  terms,  the  lots  being  cast,  she  fell  to  Theseus,  who 
received  the  virgin  and  conveyed  her,  as  she  was  not  yet  marriage 
able,  to  Aphidnae.  Here  he  placed  his  mother  with  her  and  com 
mitted  them  to  the  care  of  his  friend  Aphidnus,  charging  him  to 
keep  them  with  the  utmost  secrecy  and  safety;  whilst,  to  pay  his 
debt  of  service  to  Pirithbus,  himself  travelled  with  him  into  Epirus, 
with  a  view  to  the  daughter  of  Aidoneus,  king-  of  the  Molossians. 
This  prince  named  his  wife  u  Proserpine,"  his  daughter  "  Core,"  and 
his  dog  "Cerberus."  With  this  dog  he  commanded  all  his  daughter's 
suitors  to  fight,  promising  her  to  him  who  should  overcome  him. 
But  understanding  that  Pirithous  came  not  with  an  intention  to  court 
his  daughter,  but  to  carry  her  off  by  force,  he  seized  both  him  and 
his  friend,  destroyed  Pirithous  immediately  by  means  of  his  dog,  and 
shut  up  Theseus  in  close  prison." 

These  and  similar  friendships  among  the  great, 
doubtless  were  in  the  mind  of  Addison  when  (in 
Cato)  he  wrote : 

"  The  friendships  of  the  world  are  oft 
Confederacies  in  vice,  or  leagues  of  pleasure." 

The  last  was  indeed  costly  to  both;  for  Theseus, 
though  delivered  from  prison  by  Hercules,  was  des 
tined  for  his  baleful  work,  confederate  and  single, 
to  be  cast  down  the  Scyrian  promontory;  and  Vir 
gil  represents  him  afterwards  in  Tartarus,  ever  re 
peating  to  the  shades  therein  the  admonitory  words, 

"Discite  justitiam  moniti,  et  non  temnere  divos." 

As  for  the  friendship  of  Damon  and  Pythias,  its 
story  would  seem  to  have  been  handed  down  for 
the  purpose  mainly  of  illustrating  how  rarely,  under 
the  government  of  such  a  prince  as  Dionysius,  can 
exist  a  friendship  which  to  a  less,  yet  a  high  degree 
is  very  common  in  modern  times,  particularly 


226       CELEBRATED   AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS. 

among  free  peoples,  wherein  on  every  business-day 
in  every  year  men  become  sureties  for  the  perform 
ance  of  the  most  difficult  obligations  and  risk  the 
most  stringent  penalties,  not  only  in  behalf  of  friends 
but  of  others  whom  they  believe  to  have  the  sense 
of  honor  which  alone  is  necessary  to  save  from 
losses.  The  return  of  Damon  did  indeed  operate 
as  a  surprise  upon  the  despot,  so  great  as  to  induce 
a  solicitation  to  be  admitted  into  a  friendship  so 
far  beyond  all  his  notions  of  what  was  possible  to 
humanity. 

We  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  the  account  given 
by  Cicero  of  the  friendship  of  Scipio  and  Laelius. 
Not  that  we  have  been  made  familiar  with  any 
special  incidents  of  their  mutual  rendering  of  ser 
vices.  Yet  in  the  mouth  of  the  less  eminent  of 
these  two  were  put  some  of  the  sweetest  words  that 
were  ever  spoken.  In  this  treatise  (De  Amicitia) 
may  be  seen,  we  think,  the  justice  of  what  was  said 
in  the  beginning  of  this  article  about  the  subtlety 
that  makes  any  definite  exposition  concerning 
friendship  impossible.  We  know  not  what  depth  of 
sorrow  had  been  felt  by  the  survivor  when  death,  in 
circumstances  of  special  horror,  took  from  his  em 
brace  the  beloved  companion  in  military  and  civic 
achievements;  but  his  absence  shortly  afterwards 
from  the  college  of  augurs  in  the  gardens  of  De- 
cms  Brutus  was  found  to  have  been  attributed  erron- 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS.        227 

eously  to  his  indulgence  of  grief  instead  of  being 
detained  at  home  by  sickness.  We  are  led  by 
Cicero,  who  lets  him  discourse  upon  the  subject 
with  his  sons-in-law,  to  notice  how  different  is 
friendship  from  love,  how  far  below  it  indeed  if 
measured  by  the  feelings  that  arise  when  lovers 
have  seen  their  best  beloved  depart  from  this  life. 
"Moveor"  calmly  said  the  survivor,  "sed  non  egeo 
medicina. "  Indeed,  it  appears  that  he  was  afraid 
to  indulge  in  grief  to  any  extent.  "Mcerere  hoc 
ejus  eventu  vereor  ne  invidi  magis  quam  amid  sit." 
All  grief  has  yielded  to  the  sweetness  mostly  of  re 
membering  of  what  sort  was  the  illustrious  man 
whose  companionship  he  had  enjoyed  so  long,  and 
partly  in  speculating  upon  the  exalte d  estate  to 
which  he  believes  him  to  have  risen.  It  is  very  en 
tertaining  to  listen  to  such  eloquent  discourse  from 
one  in  whom  there  seems  no  sorrow,  almost  no 
feeling  of  regret,  and  muse  upon  the  reflections 
which  this  disciple  of  the  Stoics  makes  upon  a  rela 
tion  that  left  such  solace  on  its  dissolution,  summing 
up  with  the  conclusion  that  friendship — friendship 
that  is  to  endure  throughout  life  (than  which  nothing 
is  more  difficult  or  more  rare) — can  obtain  only 
among  the  good.  Such  had  been  the  friendship  of 
^Emilius  and  Luscinius,  of  Curius  and  Coruncanius. 
Yet  what  shall  we  say  of  the  instance  given,  though 
with  lofty  indignation,  of  Blossius  Cumanus  and  Ti- 


228        CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

berius  Gracchus,  which  survived  the  tomb,  and  was 
avowed  by  the  survivor  when  pleading  for  mercy 
before  the  consuls,  Laenas  and  Rupilius,  before 
whom  he  declared  that  such  had  been  his  affection 
for  the  great  tribune  that  if  the  latter  had  asked 
him  to  put  the  torch  to  the  Capitol  he  would  have 
complied.  "  Videtis  quam  nefaria  vox!"  exclaimed 
the  aged  patriot.  Yet  the  instance  disproved  his 
theory. 

Here  it  seems  apposite  to  remark  that  those 
friendships  that  have  become  historic  have  subsisted 
for  the  greater  part  between  men  who  were  not 
equals,  and  that  the  warmth  of  their  devotion  has 
been  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  inequality.  But  for 
Theseus  we  might  never  have  heard  of  Pirithous, 
yet  it  was  the  latter  who  took  the  initiative  in  that 
famous  alliance;  and  we  know  too  much  of  the 
temper  of  him  who  had  vanquished  the  Minotaur, 
the  Bull  of  Marathon,  and  the  Centaurs  to  be  in 
much  doubt  how  he  would  have  behaved  had  the 
Spartan  princess  fallen  to  the  other's  lot.  So  of  Py- 
lades,  in  whom  the  fierce  blood  of  the  Atreidai  had 
been  mingled  with  the  un warlike  of  the  Phocian. 
He  became  never  the  leader,  but  was  ever  the  fol 
lower,  both  in  the  assassination  of  Clytemnestra 
and  the  expedition  into  Taurica  Chersonesus.  So 
of  Pythias,  whose  name  it  is  probable,  would  never 
have  been  transmitted  but  for  his  standing  bail  for 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS.        2 29 

the  distinguished  disciple  of  Pythagoras.  Even  of 
Laelius  the  most  of  what  we  know  is  from  the  pen 
of  the  great  orator  who,  in  his  name,  put  forth  that 
splendid  panegyric.  In  this  his  sense  of  inferiority 
is  apparent  in  the  praise  he  bestowed,  and  a  pardon 
able  pride  in  having  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  such 
a  man,  the  recollection  of  which  subdued  most  of 
the  grief  at  his  death.  It  was  exquisite  tact,  the 
selection  of  the  lesser  but  more  devoted  friend. 
We  cannot  but  suspect  that  in  the  other  case  the 
most  eloquent  words  in  the  discourse  would  have 
been  employed  upon  his  own  and  the  renowned 
deeds  of  the  rest  of  the  Scipios. 

The  same  may  be  said,  and  with  greater  fitness, 
of  the  friendship  of  David  and  Jonathan.  The  in 
itiative  is  from  the  inferior.  Not  all  of  the  pro 
phetic  gift  imparted  by  tasting  the  honey-comb  at 
Beth-aven  had  been  lost,  and  in  the  stripling  holding 
in  his  hand  the  Phillistine's  head  he  recognized  a 
rising  star  before  which  his  father's  would  disappear. 
Most  pathetic  is  the  history  of  this  friendship,  be 
ginning  at  first  sight : 

"And  Saul  said  to  him,  \Vhose  son  art  thou,  thou  young  man?  And 
David  answered,  I  am  the  son  of  thy  servant,  Jesse  the  Beth-lehemite. 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  had  made  an  end  of  speaking  unto 
Saul,  that  the  soul  of  Jonathan  was  knit  with  the  soul  of  David,  and 
Jonathan  loved  him  as  his  own  soul. 

"Then  Jonathan  and  David  made  a  covenant,  because  he  loved 
him  as  his  own  soul." 

It    is  touching  to  consider   the  ministrations  in 


230        CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

this  alliance,  all  on  the  part  of  the  interior,  the 
melancholy  Jonathan.  Pursued  by  the  frightened 
jealousy  of  the  king,  David  flees  from  Ramah  to  the 
faithful  prince,  by  whom  he  is  hidden  in  the  field. 
Even  here  protection  is  bespoke  for  himself  and 
his  house  when  the  fugitive,  his  enemies  being  over 
come,  shall  rise  to  the  kingdom: 

"And  thou  shalt  not  only  while  yet  I  live  show  me  the  kindness  of 
the  Lord,  that  I  die  not: 

"But  also  thou  shalt  not  cut  off  thy  kindness  from  my  house  for 
ever;  no, not  when  the  Lord  hath  cutoff  the  enemies  of  David  every 
one  of  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

"  So  Jonathan  made  a  covenant  with  the  house  of  David,  saying, 
Let  the  Lord  even  require  it  at  the  hand  of  David's  enemies. 

"And  Jonathan  caused  David  to  swear  again,  because  he  loved  him 
as  he  loved  his  own  soul." 

Once,  and  once  only,  is  it  recorded  that  the 
feeling  of  David  was  the  stronger.  Yet  even  this 
may  be  attributed  to  gratitude  for  his  rescue  more 
than  response  to  the  love  that  at  such  risk  had  been 
expended  upon  him: 

"And  as  soon  as  the  lad  was  gone,  David  arose  out  of  a  place 
towards  the  south,  and  fell  on  his  face  to  the  ground,  and  bowed  him 
self  three  times:  and  they  kissed  one  another,  and  wept  with  one 
another,  until  David  exceeded. 

"And  Jonathan  said  to  David,  Go  in  peace,  forasmuch  as  we  have 
sworn  both  of  us  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  saying,  The  Lord  be  be 
tween  me  and  thee,  and  between  my  seed  and  thy  seed  for  ever. 

"And  he  arose  and  departed  and  Jonathan  went  into  the  city." 

Yet  another  service  and  another  reminder  are 
made  in  the  wilderness  of  Ziph: 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS.        231 

"And  Jonathan,  Saul's  son,  arose  and  went  to  David  in  the  wilder 
ness,  and  strengthened  his  hand  in  God. 

"•And  he  said  unto  him,  Fear  not:  for  the  hand  of  Saul  my  father 
shall  not  find  thee;  and  thou  shalt  be  king  over  Israel,  and  I  shall  be 
next  unto  thee:  and  that  also  Saul  my  father  knoweth. 

"•And  they  two  made  a  covenant  before  the  Lord;  and  David  abode 
in  the  wood,  and  Jonathan  went  to  his  house." 

It  was  a  merciful  lessening  of  the  prophetic  inspira 
tion  of  Jonathan  when,  always  sad  but  ever  hoping, 
he  fondly  dreamed  of  becoming  second  to  the  loved 
of  his  soul  in  the  coming  kingdom.  Beautiful  was 
the  song  of  the  royal  poet  over  the  bodies  of  father 
and  son  at  Gilboa;  but  there  is  .no  noticeable  dif 
ference  in  the  sorrow  he  felt  for  both  in  the  praises 
he  bestowed: 

'•  From  the  blood  of  the  slain,  from  the  fat  of  the  mighty,  the  bow 
of  Jonathan  turned  not  back,  and  the  sword  of  Saul  returned  not 
empty. 

"  Saul  and  Jonathan  were  lovely  in  their  lives,  and  in  death  they 
were  not  divided:  they  were  swifter  than  eagles,  they  were  stronger 
than  lions. 

"  Ye  daughters  of  Israel,  weep  over  Saul,  who  clothed  you  in  scarlet, 
with  other  delights,  who  put  on  ornaments  of  gold  upon  your  apparel. 

u  How  are  the  mighty  fallen  in  the  midst  of  the  battle.  O  Jona 
than!  thou  wast  slain  in  thine  high  places. 

"  I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan:  very  pleasant  hast 
thou  been  unto  me:  thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful,  passing  the  love 
of  woman. 

"  How  are  the  mighty  fallen,  and  the  weapons  of  war  perished!1' 

A  beautiful  song.  Amid  high-sounding  strains  of 
lament  for  the  fall  of  the  powerful  is  interlude d 
one,  tender  and  brief,  for  the  friend,  not  so  much 
for  the  sake  of  the  survivor's  love  as  of  that  of  the 
dead,  which  was  passing  the  love  of  woman,  it 


232        CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

is  the  most  interesting  in  all  the  annals  of  friend 
ship,  and,  like  most  others,  whether  among  the  pow 
erful  or  the  lowly,  the  wise  or  the  simple,  its  incip- 
iency  and  its  preponderance  of  fondness  were  with 
the  one  whose  capacities  were  the  least  for  every 
purpose  except  that  of  ever-abiding  affection  and 
unalterable  faithfulness  to  its  behests. 

In  other  historic  though  less  noted  friendships,  as 
that  between  Sts.  Cuthbert  and  Herbert,  and  that 
between  Xystus  II.  and  St.  Lawrence,  may  be  seen 
also  the  greater  devotion  of  the  lesser  friend.  The 
humble  monk  of  Derwentwater  besought  the  great 
bishop  of  Lindisfarne  to  obtain  for  him  the  felicity 
of  dying  at  the  same  hour  with  him,  and  the  request 
was  kindly  granted.  So  the  poor  deacon,  following 
behind  the  great  pontiff  as  he  was  led  to  execution, 
put  forth  a  similar  request;  and  his  lamentation 
was  subdued  when  assured  that  after  three  days 
more,  to  be  spent  in  distributing  among  the  poor 
the  treasures  of  the  church,  he  should  get  also  his 
crown  of  martyrdom  and  rejoin  his  beloved  in  a 
better  world. 

Other  thoughts  come  to  the  mind  while  reflecting 
upon  these  and  the  common  friendships  of  the 
world.  There  is  among  mankind  a  respect  for 
friendship  that  may  be  named  almost  unique. 
There  is  no  term  that  indicates  pitifulness  like 
"friendless,"  For  rare  as  may  be  the  friendships 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS.        233 

that  are  reasonably  cemented,  and  that  continue 
long  faithful  and  fond,  yet  how  few  so  poor  as  not  to 
have  one  or  more  whom  they  may  justly  call  friends. 
To  no  condition  of  human  life  do  not  friendships  of 
some  sort  seem  to  have  a  necessity  peculiar  to  them 
selves,  differing  from  and  independent  of  that  per 
taining  to  other  conditions.  The  possession  of 
wives  and  children,  the  possession  or  pursuit  of  rich 
es,  power,  and  honor,  seldom  if  ever  are  satisfactory 
without  the  added  possession  of  friends.  The  di 
visions  that  friendships  allow  in  felicities,  the  solace 
they  impart  in  miseries,  are  unlike  those  in  any 
other  relation.  Perhaps  causes  of  this  are  their 
calmness,  their  comparative  freedom  from  eagerness 
— things  that  render  communion  among  those  who 
feel  them,  whether  often  or  seldom  together,  whether 
dwelling  near  or  remote,  so  practicable  and  even. 
The  husband,  to  be  content,  must  live  with  his  wife, 
and  a  parent  among  or  near  his  children.  But  the 
dearest  friends  may  dwell  far  apart,  and  the  pressure 
of  life  that  has  separated  them  alters  not  the  sweet 
ness  of  communions  that  are  only  silent.  When  death 
comes  to  one,  if  tears  flow  not  as  at  the  departure  of 
those  bound  by  a  more  passionate  feeling,  the  minds 
of  survivors  are  often  more  true  to  the  memory  of 
this  bond  than  to  some  of  those  which  in  life  were 
stronger. 

As  to  the  origin  of  friendships  it  is  useless  to  s;>ec- 


234       CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS. 

ulate;  so  as  to  the  occasions  of  their  cementation; 
sc  as  to  the  inherent  fitness  of  particular  classes  ot 
persons  for  their  fondest  and  most  faithful  manifes 
tations.  If  the  loves  between  men  and  women 
often  seem  fitful  or  dependent  upon  accidents,  what 
shall  we  say  ot  the  friendships  of  this  life?  In  all 
this  earth  there  is  nothing  that,  if  not  accidental, 
seems  so  incomprehensibly  capricious.  In  loves 
dissimilarities,  whether  of  person  or  of  mind  and 
disposition,  oftener  than  otherwise  are  what  first 
united  them.  The  man  with  dark  hue  and  eyes 
commonly  finds  the  maid  with  the  blonde  and  blue. 
The  maid  light-hearted  and  petite  is  commonly 
won  by  the  man  lofty  and  saturnine.  In  loves  the 
things  are  sought  which  the  seekers  do  not  already 
possess.  It  is  a  law  like  that  of  lower  nature 
which  delights  in  oppositions  or  in  compositions, 
and  will  not  be  content  with  one  of  its  kind  though 
most  excellent.  We  notice  often  how  variant  from 
the  leaf  of  a  tree  is  its  flower,  and  how  variant  from 
both  the  fruit.  What  thousands  of  compositions 
dot  every  vernal  landscape ! 

But  friendships  cannot  be  traced  commonly  either 
to  unlikenesses  or  likenesses.  The  unlike  and  the 
like  sort  in  circumstances  that  often  seem  as  acci 
dental  as  the  fall  of  leaves  that  have  been  lifted  by 
one  wind  and  deposited  softly  upon  the  bosoms  of 
Others  that  were  brought  by  a  contrary.  As  for 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS.        235 

the  dependence  of  friendships  upon  special  charac 
teristics  of  mind  and  temper,  and  the  dogma  that 
they  cannot  exist  except  among  the  good,  nothing 
seems  more  remote  from  reality.  Not  only  do 
friendships  subsist  among  the  bad,  but  they  subsist 
between  the  good  and  the  bad.  There  is  hardly 
any  community,  however  small,  wherein  friendships 
of  greater  or  less  intensity  are  not  found  that  seem 
most  incongruous;  wherein  the  conduct,  the  senti. 
ments,  the  aspirations,  of  one  friend  are  unexcep 
tionable,  and  those  of  the  other,  if  not  degraded, 
seem  to  be  ever  tending  downwards.  What  is  yet 
more  curious  among  such  is  that  the  example  of  one 
has  seldom  appeared  to  have  been  very  salutary,  or 
that  of  the  other  pernicious.  There  jmay  be  repri 
mands  frequent  and  earnest,  and  acceptance  of  them, 
whether  with  or  without  resentment,  but  often  with, 
out  amendment;  yet  alliances  continue  to  subsist,  if 
seldom  offensive,  at  least  always  defensive,  and  the 
one  with  all  his  virtuous  conduct,  sentiments,  and 
aspirations  will  risk  all  he  values  most  highly  in 
public  opinion  to  defend  his  comrade  and  rescue 
him  from  punishment  that  he  knows  would  be  just. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  defence  rendered 
by  members  of  the  Bar  to  those  who  have  been 
charged  with  crimes  of  various  magnitude,  and  the 
world  outside  of  courts  has  its  stereotyped  words  of 
condemnation  for  conduct  seeming  to  them  incon- 


236       CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

sistent  with  the  conservation  of  tranquillity,  honor, 
and  respect  for  law  for  which  men  of  this  profession 
ought  to  be  particularly  noted.  Yet  among  these 
brave,  ardent,  persistent  defences  one  may  often  see 
what  is  only  a  discharge  of  what  is  felt  to  be  a  be 
hest  of  friendship  of  more  or  less  affectionateness, 
whose  risks  and  sacrifices  are  the  greater  as  the 
danger  is  more  threatening  and  public  hostility  and 
prosecution  more  exacerbated.  For  even  the  felon 
when  arrested  seeks  aid,  not  always  from  counsel 
who  are  most  distinguished,  but  rather  from  him 
whom  he  knows  and  likes  most,  on  whose  recipro 
cation  of  his  good-will  he  relies  for  successful  ren 
dering  of  the  service  which  he  so  sorely  needs  more 
trustingly  than  he  would  rely  upon  the  superior 
adroitness  and  eloquence  of  the  greatest  advocate. 

As  to  the  rarity  of  friendships  asserted  by  the  good 
Laelius,  he  was  referring,  of  course,  to  such  as  that 
which  marked  the  companionship  of  himself  with  the 
illustrious  man  whose  departure  he  contemplated 
with  feelings  so  calm  and  painless.  Friendships 
may  indeed  be  not  only  rare  but  impossible  when  the 
highest  heights  of  ambition  admit  but  one  among 
the  sealers,  if  only  two  in  number,  to  attain.  The 
instance  is  yet  to  be  found  wherein  of  two  friends, 
equal  in  every  particular  and  both  desirous  of  renown, 
one  stepped  aside  and  allowed  the  other  to  plant 
his  foot  upon  the  acme  of  public  honors.  But  there 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS.        237 

is  no  rarity  of  devoted  friendships  among  the  mul 
titudes — friendships  that  delight  in  services  which  it 
is  even  sweeter  to  bestow  than  it  is  to  receive. 

The  poets  have  been  prone  to  lament  the  evanes 
cence  of  friendships.  But  this  is  rather  from  the 
fact  that  their  spirits  are  tuned  to  a  sensibility  so 
high  that  they  set  an  inadequate  value  on  what  is 
possible  to  the  multitudes  who  are  not  so  finely 
and  tensely  strung.  Their  lamentations  are  for  the 
absence  of  those  emotions  which  only  spirits  like 
them  can  feel,  ethereal  and  of  some  semblance  to 
the  divine.  But  let  any  man  of  experience  count 
up,  if  he  will,  the  number  of  those  which  have  been 
wholly  dissolved  in  the  period  of  his  observations. 
How  few  among  them  have  been  found  grossly  un 
faithful  !  We  will  not  say  that  the  friendships  of  hu 
man  life  have  been  more  enduring  in  the  main  than 
its  loves,  though  we  are  not  quite  sure  of  being  wrong 
if  we  should.  For  loves,  though  more  ardent,  are 
more  exacting,  and  they  often  lose  all  because  dis 
satisfied  and  complaining  of  what  seems  to  them  the 
little  received  compared  with  the  abundance  which 
they  bestow.  Loves  demand  reiterated  assurances 
and  proofs  which  lovers,  on  the  one  hand,  sometimes 
grow  resentful  for  the  few  they  receive,  and,  on  the 
other,  grow  weary  of  their  repeated  rendering. 
Hence  the  numbers  of  the  neglects  of  parents,  of 
the  disinheritances  of  children,  and  especially  of  di- 


238       CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

vorces  of  husbands  and  wives,  that  would  be  multi 
plied  ten  thousand  fold  except  partly  for  the  scandal  to 
be  incarred,  partly  for  the  inconveniences  resultant  to 
families,  but  mainly  the  restraining  laws  of  the  church 
and  the  state. 

"A  question  was  started  whether  the  state  of  marriage  was  natural 
to  man.  JOHNSON — 'Sir,  it  is  so  far  from  being  natural  lor  man  to  live 
in  a  state  ot  marriage  that  we  find  all  the  motives  which  they  have 
for  remaining  in  that  connection,  and  the  restraints  which  civilized 
society  imposes  to  prevent  separation,  are  hardly  sufficient  to  keep 
them  together.'  "* 

These  were  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  loving  and 
devoted  of  husbands,  who  during  the  whole  of  his 
widowed  life  mourned  the  departure  of  the  wife  of 
his  bosom. 

On  the  other  hand,  friendships  receive  and  be 
stow  with  little  jealousy,  and  some  of  their  dearest 
results  follow  services  in  which  those  who  bestow 
are  hardly  conscious  of  the  exertion  which  they 
cost.  It  is  not  often,  we  believe,  that  friendships 
that  have  once  been  fond  are  dissolved,  at  least  to 
the  degree  as  to  become  hostilities.  Such  an  end 
shocks  the  minds  even  of  the  simple  and  humble. 
On  the  contrary,  such  friendships  usually  survive 
even  the  tomb,  and  the  affection  telt  by  those  who 
have  departed  are  often  inherited  and  treasured  by 
their  children.  Common  life  abounds  in  them,  and, 
though  not  demonstrative,  self-asserting,  and  exact- 

*Boswell's  "  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson." 


CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON   FRIENDSHIPS.        239 

ing  like  loves,  they  impart  to  the  multifold  misfor 
tunes  of  this  lower  life  a  solace  without  which  they 
would  be  far  harder  to  endure.  They  help  to  sup 
port  poverty,  exile,  imprisonment,  loss  of  kindred, 
youth,  health,  honor,  name,  even  loves;  and  as  old 
wine  is  the  sweeter,  so,  after  the  lapse  of  long  time, 
thoughts  of  them  are  more  comforting  and  more 
fond. 

We  would  not  be  understood  as  maintaining  that 
friendship  is  either  superior  or  equal  to  love:  for 
love  is  undoubtedly  the  supreme  of  all  the  emotions 
of  the  human  heart.  It  is  the  very  exaltation  of 
its  supremacy  more  than  all  other  causes  that  gives 
rise  to  the  jealousies  by  which  it  is  often  so  sorely 
beset.  To  these  jealousies  friendship  itself  some 
times  makes  the  incipient  if  not  controlling  occasion. 
We  remember,  in  Dickens'  Household  Words,  a 
somewhat  blase  account  of  the  loss  of  one  friend  by 
another  after  the  marriage  of  the  former.  "I  had 
an  old  friend" — the  bachelor's  story  about  thus  ran 
— "and  he  got  married.  After  sometime  I  went  to 
see  him  and  his  wife.  As  I  entered  the  room  some 
thing  stood  up,  having  on  my  old  friend's  clothes, 
standing  in  his  shoes,  speaking  in  his  voice.  But  it 
was  not  my  old  friend;  he  was  gone." 

In  this  instance,  as  in  most  others  of  the  dissolu 
tions  of  friendship,  is  to  be  noticed  the  manner  in 
which  they  occur.  Sad  as  they  may  be  to  all  par- 


240      CELEBRATED  AND  COMMON  FRIENDSHIPS. 

ties,  they  are  seldom  accompanied  by  violence,  and 
more  seldom  are  succeeded  by  enmities.  Such 
friendships  commonly  subside  beneath  the  pressure 
of  life,  that  substitutes  other  ties  in  their  stead,  and, 
instead  of  being  rudely  cast  aside,  become  only  ob 
solete.  " Sunt  remissione  usus  eluendce,"  as  the 
elder  Cato  used  to  say,  "dissuendce  magis  quam  dis- 
cindendcz"  Whereas  loves  when  dissolved  are  dis 
solved  for  the  most  part  abruptly,  if  not  with  anger 
and  violence ;  hearts  once  beating  in  happy  unison 
are  torn  and  bleeding,  and  if  hate,  does  not  succeed 
it  is  mainly  because  pride  or  pious  submission  keeps 
it  away. 

Loves  and  friendships — happy  they  who  may  claim 
or  who  may  believe  they  can  claim,  to  have  both, 
genuine  and  constant.  Not  all  are  blessed  with  the 
greater;  but  the  less  hardly  any  is  so  poor  as  to  be 
wholly  without. 


Studies, 


iterary  and 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  UBRARY 


